A judge with United States District Court for the District of Columbia ordered a review and could bring operations to a halt of a pipeline in North Dakota that has been successfully operating for the past three years since President Donald Trump kept a campaign promise to get oil and gas pipelines online, which had been repeatedly delayed during the Obama administration.
Judge James Boasberg wrote that the easement approval for the pipeline is “highly controversial” and a “more extensive review is necessary than the environmental assessment that was done,” the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Mike Faith told AP it a “significant legal win.” The tribe claims the pipeline threatens polluting water supplies.
“Perhaps in the wake of this court ruling the federal government will begin to catch on, too, starting by actually listening to us when we voice our concerns,” Faith said in a statement.
“Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the GAIN Coalition, a group that supports large infrastructure projects, said the decision could jeopardize the nation’s economic and energy security,” AP reported.
“This is a stunning decision that flies in the face of decades of widely accepted practice,” Stevens said in a statement. “The Dakota Access Pipeline is already the most studied, regulated, and litigated pipeline in the history of our country and has been safely operating for nearly three years.”
A fact sheet from Energy Transfer, which operates the pipeline, describes it:
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,172-mile underground 30″ pipeline transporting light sweet crude oil from the Bakken/Three Forks production area in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. Safely operating since June of 2017, the Dakota Access Pipeline now transports 570,000 barrels of oil per day.
The pipeline is the safest and most efficient means to transport crude oil from the geographically constrained region, providing better access to Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries and other downstream markets.
The Dakota Access Pipeline created approximately 8,000 to 12,000 jobs during construction. It put highly skilled union mechanics, electricians, pipefitters, heavy equipment operators and others within the heavy construction industry to work. Local economies benefited from workers using hotels, motels, restaurants and other services.
And since the start of operation, the pipeline has been paying millions in property taxes to states each year. These tax dollars have been used to support schools, hospitals, emergency services and other critical ongoing needs. We remain an active member of the communities the pipeline traverses, which is a core aspect of our business.
AP reported on what might come next:
It’s not clear whether the ruling will shut down the pipeline. Boasberg ordered both parties to submit briefs on whether the pipeline should continue operating during the period of the new environmental review.
The pipeline was the subject of months of protests, sometimes violent, during its construction in late 2016 and early 2017 near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The Standing Rock tribe continued to press litigation against the pipeline even after it began carrying oil from North Dakota across several states to a shipping point in Illinois in June 2017.
AP interviewed environmentalist activists who oppose fossil fuel, including Jan Hasselman, an attorney with the leftwing Earthjustice which represents the Standing Rock tribe. The group said the Obama administration “had it right” in its efforts to block the pipeline.
Read more at Breitbart
Idiot judges like this should be removed from the bench and not allowed to judge even a flower show
This’s simple money extortion by the crooked indians. Revoke their casino license and cut off any federal help. Sick of their “sacred” places. Who cares? My sacred place is at the gas pumps,that’s what makes America going forward.
The plains Indians had funeral pyres near where the person deceased and marked the spot with a rock. Any rock out on the plains could be considered an ancient Indian burial location. Could be. May not know for certain, but sacred places could be anywhere…everywhere.
There are people who have a serious problem of being addicted to gambling. We need a lawsuit demanding these anti-pipe line Indians shut down their casino. Clearly with a small minority of people addicted to gambling the casinos are a public nuisance.
We have all kinds of industry that can be subject to this same activism.
Chemical plants, oil refineries, oil gathering systems and pipelines.
Review them all and close them all down. New face of activist judges. And this is legal in what way!?
Lets face it these liberals just want America to fail they will not be happy until all of America has become a a third world nation why else do these scumball’s want to disarm us all and open our nations borders their all Traitors anyway
This is clearly another instance of judicial legislation, or at least an attempt at it. This is where actions that can not and should not make it through a legislator are mandated by a court. This by passes democracy and in reality is a dictatorship for the issues involved. We need to solve this problem. One way would be in the cases where they lost the law suit require the lawyers and their clients to pay all court costs, the impact on industry including those from delay, and compensate people who’s employment was delayed. Bankruptcy should not be allowed to get out of the settlement.
Judge Boasberg is a tool. A pipeline safely operated need no additional legal hurdles. Judicial behavior exhibited here should not be tolerated.
Sorry, Chief Standing Buffalo Chip, we are now in a wartime emergency, so the President of the United States can issue an order to continue to using the pipeline as a national defense necessity just like he ORDERED the foot-dragging wench running General Motors to stop blocking the wartime manufacture of ventilators. Let’s see how the LEFT likes it when the President overrules LEFTIST ACTIVISTS instead of the other way around. We elected Donald Trump to be President, not some Ambulance-Chaser in a Black Robe.
The fossil fuel companies need to show their support by cutting off supplies of propane and natural gas to the natives and ban them from all gas station property. Car dealerships need to show support by refusing to sell vehicles to natives, after all, those vehicles drive on pavement which comes from oil.
Where is the proof that a pipeline is a risk to water? Proof is needed.
When there’s no place left to store the refineries output, pipelines will become storage vessels. If you can afford to, stock up. Every car, truck, boat, tractor etc has a fuel tank. There’s hundreds of millions of them. When the China virus pandemic is past and travel restrictions ease, demand will return. The refineries might not ramp back up in time.