Appeals Court Keeps Dakota Access Pipeline Running

Federal Court Allows Dakota Access Pipeline To Keep Pumping Oil, Dealing Blow To Environmental Activist

The multi-billion dollar Dakota Access Pipeline can continue pumping oil for the time being, a federal court ruled Tuesday.

The U.S. Appeals Court’s ruling temporarily halts a lower court’s July 6 decision to shut down the project and order the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a rigorous environmental review of the pipeline.

Local tribes in North Dakota and other activists have long opposed the $3.8 billion line, claiming that it poisons drinking water.

The ruling allows oil to continue coursing through the DAPL, which runs from North Dakota through the Midwest and on to Gulf Coast refineries. Nearly 600,000 barrels of oil flow through the project daily, making it a significant part of North Dakota’s economy.

Energy Transfer, the company behind the project, would lose as much as $3.5 million every day the pipeline is offline and roughly $1.4 billion if the line is permanently shut down throughout 2021, Dakota Access said, according to Reuters.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other American Indian tribes requested the shutdown, arguing that the pipeline harms the environment and tramples on tribal lands. . .

Obama blocke the pipeline on his way out of office, saying approving the pipeline would tarnish the U.S.’s image as a climate change crusader.

And of course, an Obama friendly "resistance" judge was selected to take the pipeline off line:

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg made the initial move to halt the DAPL, ordering the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March to complete an Environmental Impact Statement on the pipeline, which could take upward of 13 months to complete.