(That effort failed.) Workers had to excavate sections of the affected pipeline to find and repair the leak. Some people, seeing a map of the pipeline's proposed 875-mile route through the Great Plains, may picture the region in the terms of 19th-century explorers who called it the "great American desert . To that end, the government must examine the potential impact of pipeline construction and man-camps on Native people, especially women and children. Meanwhile, major new tar sands projects stopped moving forward, despite investments from the government of Alberta, Canada. These lands are Indian lands. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. The founder of Bold Nebraska has led the Cornhusker States years-long rallying cry against TransCanadas tar sands pipeline. NRDC.org stories are available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as time and place elements, style, and grammar); you cant resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you cant republish our material wholesale or automaticallyyou need to select stories individually; you can't republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when youve used one of our stories. Oil trains wont get better brakes, air conditioners wont get safer chemicals, and children lose their EPA advocate. So this is a complete win for the tribes on the motions to dismiss. The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. Obviously, that is not the case. We look forward to holding the Trump Administration and TransCanada accountable to the Tribes and the applicable laws that must be followed., NARF Staff Attorney Matthew Campbell also reacted to the news, Of course, the treaties were agreed to by the president of the United States and ratified by the Senate, so the treaties clearly apply. With President Trumps illegal permit revoked, the Tribes plan to continue their efforts to ensure that TransCanada, and its proposed Keystone XL project, follows all applicable laws that are in place to protect tribal people and ancestral lands. At the end of July, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (the Tribes) filed their response to the defendants motions to dismiss in Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Trump. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe has retained the NARF to represent its interests with regard to the Keystone XL pipeline. NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth said, We believe its imperative for the voices of our tribal clients to be heard regarding the impacts of the proposed pipeline. It connects Cushing, Oklahoma, to Port Arthur, Texas. Even its maps do not give enough detail to show impacts on Indian lands. President Trumps attempt to circumvent the judicial branch is extremely troubling because he has elevated the profits of a foreign corporation above the will of the American people and the laws of the United States. Keystone XL will need permission from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, so this is not over.. It is the largest underground water source in the United States. July: The State Department extends its review of Keystone, saying they need more time for review before a final environmental impact assessment can be released. Meet some of the people who are striving to stop TransCanadas dirty tar sands oil pipeline once and for all. Indeed, moving crude by rail to the Gulf costs substantially more than moving it by pipe. The construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline would strengthen the United States economy, provide energy security and have minimal environmental impact. TC Energy has indicated it will be looking at a very ambitious 2020 construction season to make up for the lost time, as well. Until 2016,Canadaofficially objected to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They begin by displaying a map of the proposed pipeline that shows that the pipeline will not cross Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and in fact, it is located entirely on privately owned land except for a 1,094 ft portion . A similar crude oil project, the Dakota Access Pipeline has received media attention in previous years due to the police and state reactions to the protests over its creation. On November 17, 2020, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community, represented by the Native American Rights Fund and co-counsel, filed a federal lawsuit against the United States Department of Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over their issuing of the KXL permit. It has willfully ignored the pipelines impacts on tribal communities. On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an executive order to allow Keystone XL to move forward. President Bidens executive order was a landmark achievement and a sigh of relief for indigenous and environmental activists alike. The US did not adequately review the pipelines proposed route and whether it crosses tribal territory. It was first initiated in 2010, and Indigenous activists protested for a decade against its construction. Natural Resources Defense Council 2023 Privacy Policy See our request for intervention. This decision reversed two previous administrative decisions and was done without any public comment or environmental analysis. The water has been there to support the people on their ancestral lands since time immemorial. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Dirty energy lobbyists claimed developing tar sands would protect our national energy security and bring U.S. fuel prices down. The only claims dismissed are the ones that the Tribes conceded should be dismissed because they were based on an old permit. The dire climate change findings in the SEIS support the argument against the XL pipeline. The reversal came as no surprise. TransCanada's plan to dig a trench and bury part of its $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline right through this land has unearthed a host of Native American opposition, resentments. Digital maps are a powerful way to educate the public about connections between oil and gas extraction, climate change, social justice, and Indigenous rights. As much as they would like to, TransCanada cannot ignore the laws that protect Native American people and lands.. The cost is too high. Its a threat to our climate, our drinking water, and our safety. In short, tar sands oil represents no small threat to our environment, and our best stance against it, as the rallying cry goes, is to keep it in the ground.. Upon entering office, President Trumpwith his pro-polluter cabinet of fossil fuel advocates, billionaires, and bankersquickly demonstrated that his priorities differed. And these exports are more than 10 times the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Today, as in the past, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community drink the water that comes from the rivers and the ground sources to provide for their communities. An influx of itinerant workers, like those required for pipeline man-camps, correlates with increased sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sexual trafficking. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Boulder, CO (303) 447-8760 We cannot allow another pipeline to be constructed, dangerously close to yet another tribal community, for the benefit of a foreign energy company.. It also endangers the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water for Native and non-Native users residential and agricultural needs on the High Plains in eight states. (a) On March 29, 2019, the President granted to TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P. a Presidential permit (the "Permit") to . This undisputed fact, that the pipeline would cross Rosebud mineral estates held in trust, has several legal implications: The publicly available maps that the Tribes have seen show that the pipeline corridor also would cross Rosebud surface and mineral estates. Public documents about extractive projects are often difficult to find and hard to read. On Friday, December 20, 2019, NARF and their clients, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (the Tribes) received some great news from a Montana court. In the two years leading up to the November 2014 midterm elections, the fossil fuel industry spent more than $721 million to court allies in Congress. The promises made to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, as well as the Oceti Sakowin, were broken before the ink on Fort Laramie treaties dried. The one filed by Rosebud Sioux last week cites the fact that the Trump Administration has not undertaken any analysis of: trust obligations, the potential impact on tribal hunting and fishing rights, the potential impacts on the Rosebud Sioux Tribes unique water system, the potential impact of spills on tribal citizens, or the potential impact on cultural sites in the path of the pipeline. We would score a victory, and it would have huge ramifications for holding off construction at critical times, says NRDC attorney Cecilia Segal, who has worked on KXL litigation since 2017. The federal government has a treaty obligation to protect tribal citizens likely to suffer increased rates of violence and abuse. Pipeline representatives start visiting landowners potentially affected by Keystone XL. In fact, TransCanada outlined several activities scheduled for April all along the route of the pipeline, not just at the border. According to a 2015 personal public financial disclosure report filed with the Federal Election Commission, then-candidate Trump held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of stock in TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd. NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth explains, President Trump permitted the Keystone XL pipeline because he wanted to. Revoking the March 2019 Permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. January: Obama rejects the Keystone Pipeline, saying the December bill did not allow enough time to review the new route. But Keystone XL . It was a blatant attempt to prioritize corporate interests over the health and well-being of the regions citizens and tribes authority to govern their lands and protect their citizens. Based on the current status of indigenous peoples within the United States, it is evident that these treaties and those that followed were either never fulfilled or were manipulated to provide leverage for the United States government. President Bidens executive order ending the construction of the Keystone XL is a very hopeful step forward, however it needs to serve as a pushing off point for the administration to continue furthering both environmental and indigenous rights. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe will take any and all necessary steps, up to and including litigation, to protect our people, our land and water, and our cultural and historic resources., As we have seen, spills from such projects can be catastrophic, said NARF Staff Attorney Matt Campbell. the desecration and destruction of cultural, historic, and sacred sites; the endangerment of tribal members, especially women and children; damage to hunting and fishing resources, as well as the tribal health and economies associated with these activities; the impairment of federally reserved tribal water rights and resources; harm to tribal territory and natural resources in the inevitable event of Pipeline ruptures and spills; and. Today, the Presidents of Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community were in federal court to invoke their sacred inheritance from these treatiesbecause the KXL pipeline is exactly the kind of depredation the Tribes sought to prevent, NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth explained after the hearings. Despite all of these facts, throughout the permitting process, there was no analysis of trust obligations, no analysis of treaty rights, no analysis of the potential impact on hunting and fishing rights, no analysis of potential impacts on the Rosebud Sioux Tribes unique water system, no analysis of the potential impact of spills on tribal citizens, and no analysis of the potential impact on cultural sites in the path of the pipeline, which is in violation of the NEPA and the NHPA. For companies considering whether to invest in a long-lived tar sands project (which could last for 50 years), access to cheap pipeline capacity plays a major role in the decision to move forward or not. The Keystone XL pipeline extension, proposed by TC Energy (then TransCanada) in 2008, was initially designed to transport the planets dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to marketand fast. They were bargained for with the blood of our ancestors. NARF and our clients are confident in our claims against the construction of the pipeline, and we are optimistic the court will not allow this case to be dismissed. Now, after the courts have told the United States it must follow the law, President Trump has attempted to circumvent the courts by issuing a new permit. The agencies have not considered the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on either health and safety or the global oil markets. TransCanada's plan to dig a trench and bury part of its $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline right through this land has unearthed a host of Native American opposition, resentments and . The court rightly found that today.. Historic flooding recently inundated parts of the Cornhusker State where the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would pass through. It connects Steele City, Nebraska, to Cushing, Oklahoma. The 2019 supplemental environmental impact statement has numerous issues and shortcomings. Its no small feat extracting oil from tar sands, and doing so comes with steep environmental and economic costs. We have been mistreated in this process, and TC Energy has never sought or obtained our consent to build a pipeline in our territory, including on lands held in trust by the United States. The revoked permit became the final nail in the pipelines coffin. Phase 3b is added later, connecting the pipeline from Port Arthur to Houston, Texas. Earlier this year, the Keystone pipeline leaked 1,800 gallons of oil less than half a mile from the Mississippi River. Therefore, on Monday March 2, 2020, the Fort Belknap Indian Community and Rosebud Sioux Tribe filed a motion for preliminary injunction and asked the court to not allow TransCanada to begin construction of the pipeline while the case is under review. TransCanada estimated South Dakota spills at no more than once every 41 years. Nebraska appeals. They contain a form of petroleum called bitumen, a relatively sludgy substance that can be turned into fuel. This is in violation of federal law.The United States is allowing TransCanada to begin construction even though there has been no review of our treaty rights, hunting and fishing rights, or the impacts to our people, our water, or our environment. The climate impact of a complete and fully operational Keystone XL would be drastic. See the open letter from President Kindle for more information on the Rosebud Sioux Tribes position. Of course, they can then use this ongoing construction as justification for allowing the project to proceed whether or not the project is legal. TC Energy must follow the law, and that includes our laws and regulations with respect to the construction of this pipeline. The pipeline path skirts federal tribal land boundaries in South Dakota, Baker said, yet will still cut "almost through the heart" of a large protion of the land set aside for exclusive use by tribal nations, as recognized by the 1851 and 1868 Laramie Treaties.The pipe would cross native spiritual sites, burial grounds, hunting lands and sources of drinking water, including the Mni Wiconi . If and when TransCanada provides sufficient maps of the pipelines route, we expect that we will see even more affected tribal lands. Some of the current concerns are rooted in our responsibility to take care of Unci Maka, which is grandmother earth. The first, a southern leg, had already been completed and now runs between Cushing, Oklahoma,. NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth praised the decision, The courts decision means that ALL of the tribes claims on the current permits will proceed. The city was named after its founder, Harry Culver. Many had hoped that the disastrous project was finally done for in November 2015, when the Obama administration vetoed the pipelineacknowledging its pervasive threats to climate, ecosystems, drinking water sources, and public health. On October 16, 2020, the judge ruled against the Tribes on some claims, finding that the Presidents permit only applied to the border and not the entire pipeline. harm to the political integrity, economic stability, and health and welfare of the Tribes. One of the central arguments made by pipeline pushers was that tar sands expansion will move forward with or without Keystone XL. In issuing the Keystone XL permit with shoddy and superficial analysis, the federal government not only didnt do its job, it did not follow the law.. Winning support in Indian country is one of the last hurdles for the project, which is touted as a key to North American energy . Neither the president nor wealthy foreign corporations are above the laws of our country. Since the approval, the Trump administration has been sued twice by environmental organizations and lost each time. The pipeline, which had severe environmental and human rights implications, has been on a long road towards failure. The Natural Resources Defense Council works to safeguard the earth - its people, Some three million miles of oil and gas pipelines already run through our country, but KXL wasnt your average pipeline, and tar sands oil isnt your average crude. The pipeline would have stretched 1,179 . This pipeline was proposed in 2008 and has been referred to as either the Keystone XL pipeline or KXL. The land, water, tribal sovereignty, and governmental services were not given to us in those treaties, President Kindle said. The governments analysis does not meaningfully address how an influx of out-of-state construction workers will affect the health, welfare, and safety of tribal members, and in particular Native women and children. To that end, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission will be holding a public hearing on Tuesday, May 28, 2019, and Wednesday, May 29, 2019, to address the Keystone XL pipeline and its impacts on our territory and people. The Fort Belknap Indian Community and Rosebud Sioux Tribe, represented by the Native American Rights Fund, continued their fight against the illegal permitting of the Keystone XL Pipeline with two filings in the US District Court of Montana. The southern portion of the pipeline, from Oklahoma to Texas, has already been completed. (AP) The Trump administration on Wednesday approved a right-of-way allowing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline to be built across U.S. land, pushing the controversial $8 . In 2015, the Obama administration vetoed the pipeline due to its potential threats to the climate, drinking water, public health, and ecosystems of the local communities. In their permit application, TransCanada agreed to abide by tribal laws and regulation, which they have failed to do. The briefest look at American and Canadian history clearly shows that the pipeline situations are most certainly not the first instance of the government refusing to respect the lands, waters, and even peoples of indigenous groups. Regardless of the new permit and political maneuvering, the President is required to honor the treaties and the Constitution.

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