Tribal activists and other people who like water and Earth got one victory yesterday as TransCanada/TC Energy finally gave up on the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. President Joe Biden re-killed the pipeline on his first day back in the Oval Office; yesterday, the Canadian pipeliner finally admitted their project is dead:
TC Energy Corporation (TSX, NYSE: TRP) (TC Energy or the Company) confirmed today that after a comprehensive review of its options, and in consultation with its partner, the Government of Alberta, it has terminated the Keystone XL Pipeline Project (the Project).
Construction activities to advance the Project were suspended following the revocation of its Presidential Permit on January 20, 2021. The Company will continue to coordinate with regulators, stakeholders and Indigenous groups to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments and ensure a safe termination of and exit from the Project [TC Energy, press release, 2021.06.09].
Well, that moots killer Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg’s lawsuit against the Biden Administration to save Keystone XL.
Indigenous groups who worked to kill the Black Snake are pleased:
“We took on a multi-billion dollar corporation and we won!” Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer for the nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network tweeted. “The People made this happen!”
Native American tribes and activists fought the project for more than ten years. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, and the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation sued the Trump administration after it granted the Keystone XL a permit to continue construction. The pipeline threatened their lands and water sources, and the Trump administration didn’t properly consult with the tribes, they said in the suit [Julie Calma, “Say Goodbye to the Keystone XL Pipeline, for Real This Time,” The Verge, 2021.06.09].
The Ponca Nation in Nebraska is among the tribal fighters celebrating:
“On behalf of our Ponca Nation we welcome this long overdue news and thank all who worked so tirelessly to educate and fight to prevent this from coming to fruition. It’s a great day for Mother Earth,” said Ponca Tribe of Nebraska Chairman Larry Wright, Jr. [Mark Hefflinger, “Nebraska Landowners, Tribal Nations, Rejoice as TC Energy Says Keystone XL Pipeline Is Terminated,” Bold Nebraska, 2021.06.09].
Meanwhile, tribal activists are busy fighting another predatory tar sands oil pipeline, Enbridge Energy’s expansion of its Line 3 in northern Minnesota:
During the largest anti-pipeline action ever mobilized here in Anishinaabe treaty jurisdiction, self-proclaimed water protectors halted construction of Enbridge Energy Inc.’s Line 3 toxic tar-sands crude-oil pipeline on June 7.
More than 1,000 people marched with Indigenous leaders to the headwaters of the Mississippi River to initiate a four-day prayer ceremony for treaty rights recognition at the site where the pipeline is slated to cross.
Further south, some 500 Native pipeline resisters, celebrities and other allies shut down an active Line 3 pump station in a 14-hour show of civil disobedience that ended in arrests of some 100 for unlawful assembly.
The massive direct actions launched a weeklong Treaty People Gathering, attracting an estimated 2,000 participants. Indigenous-led groups, communities of faith, and climate justice organizations envision it as “the beginning of a summer of resistance,” Giniw Collective said in a media release [Talli Nauman, “Treaty Protestors Score Largest Pipeline Gathering Ever,” Native Sun News Today, 2021.06.10].
Well done, pipeline protestors! But be careful, Native activists: rich white people get awfully cranky when you start exercising power against their faux-capitalist privilege.
There’s always a backlash, watch for it. Something related to arresting people or running them over for exercising their rights.
Hey, imagine one hour without water especially with our current temps. Growing up on the rez our water was so good. Today drinking water is not the same. Notice how bottled water is so popular amongst all colors of people.
As stated here ad infinitum, the main 2020 election issue, confirmed: “Biden says Joint Chiefs told him greatest threat to US is global warming”
http://hill.cm/wt0coZS
The other crisis issue facing us the last election and now, is economic inequality. (Which includes everything else: The 1%, healthcare, home ownership, voting rights, districting, defunding cops, the bloated military, foreign policy, infrastructure in all its necessity, and protecting the rest of the environment).
F*ck the Republicans. They only want guns, violence, religious extremism and all their other daily smorgasbord of divisive obstructionist, polluting, unbalanced capitalistic schemes. No policy platform. Whatever Koch and other sinister billionaires and trillionaires and corporations want, including no taxes. They want us to pay their way and suffer the consequences.
Thank you Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people of SD who stood up to Noem and her pipeline.
Cory deserves some credit for his tireless blogging on this and other subjects near and dear to our environment. W/O Dakota Free Press many of us would have no clews as to the extent of danger to fresh water and our Earth posed by greedy Korporations, foreign and domestic. To a job well done, Master!
Well…the federal government and the various state governments have bent over backwards facilitating our pipeline building friends from Alberta, including threatening to enact “eminent domain” land seizures. This, to me, is odd. Enacting eminent domain for a foreign government and private entity to seize the land of South Dakota citizens just seems dictatorial and extra legal. What happened to “willing buyers and willing sellers??” Thank goodness for the tribes and their governments!!! Somebody around here recognizes justice when they see it, and it isn’t the Republicans. A great win for the tribes of South Dakota and another historic win for the Ponca of the Niobrara.
TX oil pumps go whiiirrrr…
Cory deserves another ‘tip o’ the jar’-as usual for getting news to South Dakotan’s that just doesn’t fit well in the normal media (TV and press) in this state run by and for the
“Black Mold Party” (formerly known as the GOP) that exists today. the old GOP gave its total submission to the con-artist from Manhattan. Like a whore prostrating herself to a john in a house of ill-repute, those beholden to Trumpism have taken down many good men/women in the Republican Party of old.
Thanks Cory, for what you do, guy!
Well John, the Texas accent is Southern with twist so maybe your on to something.
Good on you, Cory.
You made a difference.
However, don’t believe TC Energy’s claim of abandoning the project.
The tar sands juice is still there, waiting for the next friendly President.
W.W.N.D? (What Would Noem Do?)