Republicans were OK with children being poisoned in Flint, Michigan, so we know they’ll be cool with this, too. Alleged president Donald Trump signed orders late last month smoothing the path for the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. In addition, Trump signed a memo asking the United States Army Corps of Engineers to move forward with the project. On Tuesday in a court filing, the Corps said it intends to grant an easement needed to complete the Dakota Access pipeline.
The Corps also said it would terminate its plans to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.
This is outrageous:
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes, as well as environmentalists from around the country, have fought the pipeline project on the grounds that it crosses beneath a lake that provides drinking water to Native Americans. They say the route beneath Lake Oahe puts the water source in jeopardy and would destroy sacred land.
In December, the Corps said it would deny Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners the easement it needs to complete the final stretch of the $3.7 billion pipeline. United States Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy said the best path forward was to explore alternative routes for the pipeline through an environmental review.
The Standing Rock Sioux promised to sue if the Corps suspends the environmental review that Jo-Ellen Darcy announced.
“To abandon the EIS would amount to a wholly unexplained and arbitrary change based on the President’s personal views,” the Sioux said in a statement.
“We stand ready to fight this battle against corporate interest superseding government procedure and the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans,” the statement added.
Thousands of protesters, including hundreds of United States military veterans, poured in to defend the Standing Rock protest camp in early December. The veterans marched through a blizzard vowing to act as “human shields” against possible clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.
And then Trump gave the green light to invade the sacred land of Native Americans and to poison their water. That’s likely because Trump made previous investments in the company creating the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.