Standing Rock

[Jamie_B]

"The secretary of the Army Corps of Engineers has told Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Archambault that the current route for the Dakota Access pipeline will be denied."

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/Dakota-Access-Pipeline-Denied-near-sioux-reservation-404636436.html

 

It's over, the pipeline will be built elsewhere.

 

This is what happens when people get out and on the front lines and fight for what they believe in. Hopefully this sparks alot more front line fights in the next 4 years.

[T-Dub]

While I understand and sympathize with their concerns, I can't help but notice how many 10-mpg extended-cab trucks and huge SUV's were parked at the protest site.  Maybe I'm more ambivalent on account of tangentially working with the industry, and I'm disgusted by the safety record of some of these companies as well as the treatment of the protesters.  Equally disgusted by how quick people have been to cheer on a brutal police state there and elsewhere.  The human and environmental cost of our dependency on oil is enormous and it's not sustainable. 

All I'm saying is I don't see anyone protesting 2 buck a gallon gas.  This and a dozen other pipelines nobody pays attention to will still be built and expanded. They all cross somebody's land, and rivers and coastline.  This is a win but it's only one small battle. I hope the momentum carries over to the broader issues because Trump will have us fracking Yellowstone National Park if he gets his way.  Unfortunately this looks to me like more NIMBY environmentalism. 

[Go Skins]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-overturn-dakota-access-pipeline-decision-wanted/story?id=43981658

Environmental activists and protesters have rejoiced the temporary halting of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, but according to some experts with whom ABC News spoke, there are several avenues for President-elect Donald Trump to overturn the decision and continue the construction of the pipeline once he assumes office in January.

William Buzzbee, a professor at Georgetown University Law School who specializes in environmental and administrative law, said that there are multiple ways that a President Trump could prompt the construction to continue, with varying speed.

“He has two main choices: one would be to act through the Army Corps of Engineers and the other to try and act with the assistance of Congress,” Buzzbee said.

Trump could let the Army Corps of Engineers perform the Environmental Impact Statement that it said this weekend it wants to complete, and see what alternatives are presented there, though that could take several months. Buzzbee said that route would likely be Trump’s “safest” way to proceed.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on Sunday that it will not approve an easement needed to permit the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. Protesters say that the pipeline traverses culturally sacred land to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and endangers the water supply. Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline, has previously said those claims are unfounded.