Although, TransCanada, now known as TC Energy, has said that it has lost the 2019 construction season for the KXL pipeline, the company has asked the courts to lift the current injunction so that they can immediately begin to build their man-camps and pipe-yards. These lands are well within the area of impact for even a small rupture and spill. But activists say the water protector strategy has proven effective with the cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline. However, maps now reveal that the pipeline will cross tribal lands and water suppliesso the pipeline and the president MUST comply with tribal laws and treaties. Its nasty stuff., A fully realized Keystone XL would have led to more mining of that nasty stuff by accelerating the pace at which its produced and transported. Rosebud Sioux Tribes President Rodney Bordeaux delivered the South Dakota State of the Tribes address in January. Federal agencies have a duty to prevent mineral trespass and protect Indian lands and tribal mineral estates. This has proved to be untrue. They are also solemn promises between the citizens of those nations. The tribes filed a response to TransCanadas motion for summary judgment and a memorandum in support of their own motion for partial summary judgment. Tar sands lie beneath the northern Alberta boreal forest. The Canadian federal government refused to provide child and family services funding for indigenous children living on reserves, a purposeful discrimination tactic against indigenous communities. The 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie and other federal laws requires Rosebud consent to cross Rosebud territory. August: The State Department releases its final environmental assessment that the pipeline would have a limited environmental impact. Neither the president nor wealthy foreign corporations are above the laws of our country. The decision echoed a seven-year State Department review process with EPA input that concluded the pipeline would fail to serve national interests. The pipeline would cross the two sources of water for the Mni Wiconi Project. The pipeline threat is gone, but the damage to their property and lives is already done. (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 . a new mini-documentary entitled Take Action: Protect Our Land., their response to the defendants motions to dismiss. The founder of Bold Nebraska has led the Cornhusker States years-long rallying cry against TransCanadas tar sands 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 . But the groundswell of public protest was up against a formidable opponenthundreds of millions spent on lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. Of course, TransCanada claims that KXL will be safe, that it will be state of the art. Watch President Bordeauxs full State of the Tribe address. The Tribes asked the court to rescind the illegal issuance of the Keystone XL pipeline presidential permit. Instead, despite the danger to tribal citizens and all of the people living in the area, TransCanada is pushing to quickly build as much of the pipeline as possible. The agencies have not considered the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on either health and safety or the global oil markets. We are ensuring that TC Energy (TransCanada) follows and respects our law. President Bidens executive order was a landmark achievement and a sigh of relief for indigenous and environmental activists alike. In a huge success for the tribes, people, and sacred places in the path of the proposed pipeline, TransCanada (TC Energy) announced in June 2021 that it is terminating its Keystone XL pipeline project. The water has been there to support the people on their ancestral lands since time immemorial. Listen to more voices from the community on the NARF YouTube channel. The court rightly found that today.. Nebraska appeals. But environmental reviews by both the Obama and Trump administrations concluded that the Keystone XL pipeline would not have lowered gasoline prices. Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Rodney M. Bordeaux responded to the announcement, This is great news for the Tribes who have been fighting to protect our people and our lands. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Rosebud has land use, environmental, and utilities codes that apply, and TransCanada must comply with Rosebud law on Rosebud land. U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Second Class Lauren Jorgensen. Our water sources are threatened by the dirty tar sand crude, our ancestral homelands are in the direct path of the pipeline, and our people already are suffering the effects of nearby construction worker man camps. This is not a pipeline to America, said the late civil rights activist Julian Bond, among the many arrested. Historic flooding recently inundated parts of the Cornhusker State where the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would pass through. With the original permit revoked, the Ninth Circuit yesterday decided to dismiss as moot the case based on that original permit. The reversal came as no surprise. UAB also encourages applications from individuals with disabilities and veterans. See our request for intervention. This dirty, dangerous oil, which is almost impossible to clean and affects the health of people, is bad news for our countryand the planet. Share. The Native American Rights Fund represents the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community in this case. The online map can be found here: https://climatealliancemap.org/kxl-map 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. Frighteningly, the KXL pipeline design would only detect 13,000 barrels (535,000 gallons) of tar sands crude leaked in a 24-hour period. But immediately after taking office, President Donald Trump brought the zombie project back to life, along with the legal battles against it. Digital maps are a powerful way to educate the public about connections between oil and gas extraction, climate change, social justice, and Indigenous rights. All information was gathered from public documents. Opposition emerges in Nebraska. Farmers, ranchers, tribes, and conservation groups helped keep the project stalled for Trumps full four years in office, despite his best efforts to expedite its approval. 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. Even as Trump and TC Energy tried to revive the pipeline, polls showed that a majority of Americans opposed it. ), It would also have led to greater greenhouse gas emissionswhich, the latest scientific reports makes clear, we simply cant afford if were to avoid the most catastrophic climate impacts. There are countless historical, cultural, and religious sites in the planned path of the pipeline that are at risk of destruction, both by the pipelines construction and by the threat of inevitable ruptures and spills if the pipeline becomes operational. Jessica Ravitz, CNN. Last month, a Keystone Pipeline spill released more than 383,000 gallons of oilhalf of an Olympic swimming pool. For example, in 2020, Teck Resources withdrew its 10-year application to build the largest tar sands mine in history, citing growing concern surrounding climate change in global markets. Without Keystone XL, the tar sands industry has been forced to cancel projects rather than shift to rail, subsequently leaving more of the earths dirtiest fuel in the ground where it belongs. The judge found that the US State Department had not fulfilled its duties to the American people when it issued TransCanada a 2017 permit for the Keystone XL pipeline without the required environmental and safety review. 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. For over a decade, Indigenous nations and communities have continuously denied consent to the KXL pipeline from crossing their territories, citing environmental concerns, the desecration of sacred sites, treaty rights violations, and the risks of sexual violence connected with man camps. Some of the current concerns are rooted in our responsibility to take care of Unci Maka, which is grandmother earth. Revoking the March 2019 Permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. When the Tribes negotiated their treaties, they gave millions of acres of land to the United Statesincluding, ironically, the land on which the courthouse now stands. President Trump did not like these decisions. The market case had also deteriorated. Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog post are the authors only and do not necessarily reflect the official position of UAB or the Institute for Human Rights. It has been determined that the pervasive violence against indigenous women amounts to genocide. 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. This rate of toxic spills is much more frequent than TransCanada predicted and reported to the federal government. September: Canadas National Energy Board approves the Canadian section. The pipeline, which had severe environmental and human rights implications, has been on a long road towards failure. On November 17, 2020, the Tribes filed a federal lawsuit against the United States Department of Interior and the BLM over their January 2020 issuing of the KXL permit. If the Presidents goal was to avoid complying with the District Courts decision in that case, it worked. 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.. Even its maps do not give enough detail to show impacts on Indian lands. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community intend to move ahead with their claims against the United States and to demand that the United States honor its legal obligations. June 25, 2020 (Bemidji, MN) The Indigenous Environmental Network, in collaboration with the Climate Alliance Mapping Project and the Keystone XL Mapping Project, have just launched the KXL Pipeline Map, an interactive tool that highlights the route of the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, a tar sands project of the TC Energy corporation. 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. It is the largest underground water source in the United States. April: The State Department suspends the regulatory process indefinitely, citing uncertainty about the court case in Nebraska. Phase 2 and 3 did not require Presidential Permits and were built over several years starting in 2010. TC Energy has indicated it will be looking at a very ambitious 2020 construction season to make up for the lost time, as well. One of the central arguments made by pipeline pushers was that tar sands expansion will move forward with or without Keystone XL. 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. See the related statement from Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Bordeaux. TransCanada agreed to abide by tribal law. People must understand that the Ogalalla Aquifer that this pipeline will cross covers 8 states and waters 30 percent of American crops. The Rosebud Sioux Tribealso known as the Siangu Lakota Oyateis one of the seven tribes that make up the Oeti Sakowin (the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota people). In creating this version of the map, we were grateful to build on the substantial efforts of the Keystone Mapping Project to determine an accurate pipeline route. The Dakota Access Pipeline The controversial construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) gained national and international attention when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted an application filed by Energy Transfer Partners, a Texas-based developer behind the project. The United States District Court for the District of Montana recently accepted an amended complaint in what will now be known as Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Trump (formerly Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. US Dept of State). Dealing in tar sands oil is an expensive endeavor. The new complaint in Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Trump responds to President Trumps March 29 presidential permit. Those leaks will be undetected unless/until they are huge. Its costly both to produce and to ship, particularly by rail, which would be an alternative to Keystone XL. They are proposing to do so without the tribal consent required under the treaty law. It's derived from a sludgy, sticky deposit found beneath the wilds of northern Albertas boreal forest. An influx of itinerant workers, like those required for pipeline man-camps, correlates with increased sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sexual trafficking. The "replacement" pipeline runs mostly on a completely new route through Minnesota, barreling through hundreds of lakes, rivers, aqueducts and wetlands. September: TransCanada and ConocoPhillips file an application for the Keystone XL Phase 4 extension. Maps issued by TransCanada (TC Energy) clearly show the proposed KXL pipeline crossing tribal lands. But the movement has had setbacks: a federal judge in Louisisana recently. The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user. The following are quotes from the project partners: It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. September: The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community, in coordination with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, on September 10, 2018, sued the Trump Administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of MT for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. In the United States, there live over 5.2 million indigenous peoples and among them, 573 federally recognized tribes, numerous unrecognized nations, and many communities scattered across the North American continent, displaced by a long history of western oppression and forced assimilation. February: TransCanada Corporation proposes the Keystone Pipeline project. But, the President must comply with the Treaties, and TC Energy must comply with Rosebud law. It was a political step, having nothing to do with what the law actually requires. The proposed Keystone XL (KXL) Pipeline would cross Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota, including tribal lands. Oil trains wont get better brakes, air conditioners wont get safer chemicals, and children lose their EPA advocate. Winning support in Indian country is one of the last hurdles for the project, which is touted as a key to North American energy . January: Obama rejects the Keystone Pipeline, saying the December bill did not allow enough time to review the new route. Natural Resources Defense Council 2023 Privacy Policy President Bidens action today is an important first step in correcting the callous disregard for tribal sovereignty that has flourished in recent years. In granting the right-of-way, the BLM failed to analyze and uphold the United States treaty obligations to protect the Tribes lands and natural resources. Of course, TransCanada claims that KXL will be safe, that it will be state of the art. Those treaties are binding to this day, and we expect them to be honored. Complicating matters, leaks can be difficult to detect. Frontline Indigenous youth, who have been standing up against destructive oil pipelines for years, are imploring President Biden to join them in protecting their water, lands, and cultures. Like the US Constitution, treaties are the law of the land, and no one is above that law, said NARF Staff Attorney Matthew Campbell. In fact, TransCanada outlined several activities scheduled for April all along the route of the pipeline, not just at the border. Regardless of the new permit and political maneuvering, the President is required to honor the treaties and the Constitution. February: A Nebraska judge rules that the law that allowed the governor to approve Keystone XL over the objections of landowners was unconstitutional. The pipeline faced more than a decade of sustained protests from environmental activists and organizations; Indigenous communities; religious leaders; and the farmers, ranchers, and business owners along its proposed route. Washington, DC (202) 785-4166. 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 . This interactive tool is a powerful visual for Indigenous communities and our allies along the KXL route. The Keystone XL (KXL) Pipeline is the proposed Phase 4 of the Keystone Pipeline system, which already is online with a capacity to carry more than 500,000 barrels per day. The Tribes argue that the 2019 permit, which would allow a Canadian company (TransCanada) to build another dirty tar sand crude pipeline across American soil, also creates a substantial risk of. Yes, Trump has green-lighted the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Do not allow TC Energy and the Trump Administration to ignore their legal and corporate responsibilities to the American people. In their permit application, TransCanada agreed to abide by tribal laws and regulation, which they have failed to do. When you sign up you'll become a member of NRDC's Activist Network. If and when TransCanada provides sufficient maps of the pipelines route, we expect that we will see even more affected tribal lands. We will fight to ensure that federal law is followed.. Once they are gone and depleted, they are gone. What is missing is an appreciation of the long-term effects of an oil pipeline going through our sacred land. The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and owned by TC EnergyAs of March 2020, the Government of Alberta. The XL stands for export limited. If completed, KXL would add another 510,000 barrels of capacity. 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, asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order on pipeline construction, the memo in support of preliminary injunction, a response to TransCanadas motion for summary judgment, a memorandum in support of their own motion for partial summary judgment, federal court denied the United States federal governments and the TransCanadas (TC Energy) efforts to dismiss the Tribes case, poured 407, 000 gallonsalmost 3,000,000 poundsof crude oil, much more frequent than TransCanada predicted. The courts intervention is needed to protect the Tribes precious lands, water, natural, and cultural resources. Fort Belknap has declared a state of emergency on the reservation because of the extremely dangerous COVID-19 pandemic and its threat to the health and well-being of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribal members, said President Werk of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, We are very concerned about TransCanada bringing in outside construction workers from all over to build this pipeline within an hour from our reservation., Rosebud has issued a curfew, closed businesses, and asked all to shelter in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Low oil prices and increasing public concern over the climate led Shell, Exxon, Equinor (then Statoil), and Total to either sell their tar sands assets or whittle them down. The water delivery system for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is called the Mni Wiconi, which translates to Water is Life. On February 11, 2019, an 1,800-gallon spill was detected in Missouri on the main Keystone line, and last year more than 400,000 gallons were spilled from the main Keystone line in South Dakota near a tribal community. 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. One was Nebraskas Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water for millions as well as 30 percent of Americas irrigation water. February: TransCanada announces it will build Phase 3 of the Keystone Pipeline as a separate project that is not subject to presidential permission, since it does not cross an international border. It has willfully ignored the pipelines impacts on tribal communities. Together with the Fort Belknap Indian Community, we brought a lawsuit to stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline through our territories. Nevertheless, in the mid-2000s, with gas prices on the rise, oil companies ramped up production and sought additional ways to move their product from Canadas remote tar sands fields to midwestern and Gulf Coast refineries. Like that of the United States, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe also has laws that require us to ensure that any company seeking to build a pipeline in our territory must obtain our consent. The pipeline would consist of 875 miles of 36-inch pipe with the capacity to transport 830,000 barrels per day" (Parfomak, Pirog, Luther and Vann 4). (Indeed, Keystone XL was viewed as an essential ingredient in the oil industrys plans to triple tar sands production by 2030. TransCanada failed to comply with Rosebud and Fort Belknap law. The era of building fossil fuel pipelines without scrutiny of their potential impact on climate change and on local communities is over, Swift says. See the open letter from President Kindle for more information on the Rosebud Sioux Tribes position. The Keystone XL pipeline would cross the United States border into Montana, then cut through the Great Sioux Reservation, as set forth in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, in South Dakota and finally Nebraska to Steele City where the crude would mix with US crude reserves and continue to Texas for export. Since 2015, CAMP has worked with Indigenous and environmental organizations to build interactive maps that tell stories about climate justice across the Americas. The mining depletes and pollutes freshwater resources, creates massive ponds of toxic waste, and threatens the health and livelihood of the First Nations people who live near them. The court asked for supplemental briefing on whether the President had the constitutional authority to issue the permit in the first place, which the Tribes are working on now. A two-week delay in the face of a pandemic would seem like the obvious course of action. Recent governmental reports contain new data about climate change, which necessitates new analysis. See our original complaint filed. Also in the filings, the Tribes point out that, contrary to defendants arguments, neither the presidents foreign affairs power, nor his role as commander in chief provide him authority to permit the pipeline. EPA staff perform oil and sediment sampling near Battle Creek, Michigan, after the Kalamazoo spill. One such protest, a historic act of civil disobedience outside the White House in August 2011, resulted in the arrest of more than 1,200 demonstrators. TC Energy must follow the law, and that includes our laws and regulations with respect to the construction of this pipeline. The revoked permit became the final nail in the pipelines coffin. June 25, 2020 (Bemidji, MN) - The Indigenous Environmental Network, in collaboration with the Climate Alliance Mapping Project and the Keystone XL Mapping Project, have just launched the KXL Pipeline Map, an interactive tool that highlights the route of the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, a tar sands project of the TC Energy corporation.This map is a free and public tool designed to support . It connects Cushing, Oklahoma, to Port Arthur, Texas. 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. Meet some of the people who are striving to stop TransCanadas dirty tar sands oil pipeline once and for all. On the same day the Trump Administration announced that up to 240,000 people may succumb to the COVID-19 virus, TransCanada announced it is proceeding with KXL pipeline construction. The people and the planet can claim more than a few victoriesand 2019 is looking better already. Though she lives on the Yankton Sioux Reservation of South Dakota, Spotted . The State Department provided no explanation in the 2017 decision for its contradictory factual finding; instead, it simply disregarded its previous factual findings and replaced them with a new one. In a last-ditch attempt to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, 21 states led by attorneys . Fort Belknap has a Cultural Property Act that applies to the pipeline. Our land, water, and people are under direct threat from the KXL pipeline. Later, fossil fuel companies funnelled millions into Trumps 2017 inauguration ceremony, days after which he brought the Keystone XL project back from the dead, and ramped up federal lobbying efforts in the first months of his administration. "The Keystone XL Pipeline is an environmental crime in progress." "It's also been called the most destructive project on the planet." The major issues with the Keystone XL Pipeline are "the dirty tar sands oil, the water waste, indigenous populations, refining tar sands oil and don't forget the inevitable; pipeline spills." GIS allows for the creation of maps that display specific information related to the City. In addition to extensive violations of law outlined in the original complaint, the new complaint raises the following issues: Maps released by TransCanada show the pipeline corridor and access roads crossing Rosebud territory, some of which is held in trust, as well as Rosebuds Mni Wiconi Water system. Tribes and the United States government sign Treaties of Fort Laramie establishing respective territories.
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