From The Hill

The Army Corps of Engineers will grant the final approval needed to complete the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline within a day, it told lawmakers Tuesday.

The news from the Army Corps, in letters to Congress and to a federal judge in Washington, D.C. came two weeks after President Trump issued a memo asking the agency to approve the pipeline as soon as possible.

The Army Corps also told the court that will no longer complete an intensive environmental impact statement on the pipeline, an action the Obama administration decided to do in December that would have delayed the project for potentially a year or more.

The decision is a major victory for pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners and the oil industry, and a defeat for environmentalists and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Energy Transfer told the federal judge Monday that that it could take as little as 60 days to finish the pipeline once it gets the Army Corps easement, Reuters reported.

The easement allows Energy Transfer to build the line under federally-owned Lake Oahe in North Dakota. The pipeline, when complete, will run in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. Its construction is substantially complete, with the Lake Oahu portion behind the last major hurdle.

The approval had been held up for months amid objections from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose reservation abuts the lake. The tribe said the pipeline threatens its water supply.

The new Army Corps decision is likely to invite new litigation from the tribe.

Tribal lawyers have insisted Trump administration officials cannot overturn the December decision, and a lawyer for the tribe called such a decision “unlawful” during a Monday court hearing, according to Reuters.

Standing Rock’s concerns blossomed into a months-long protects with thousands of people from around the world at a the construction site, urging the federal government to cancel the project.

It quickly became a flashpoint for environmentalists and indigenous rights advocates, who accused the federal government of ignoring Standing Rock’s objections.

But the oil industry and Republicans rallied behind Energy Transfer and said that former President Obama’s delays of the project threatened the rule of law.

 


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