Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

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Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by loomer »

Biden Administration Backs Oil Sands Pipeline Project

The Biden administration has defended a contentious pipeline project that would carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil through Minnesota’s delicate watersheds, urging in a court brief that a challenge brought by local tribes and environmental groups be thrown out.

The closely watched filing in federal court was the latest in a series of actions taken by the administration to back Trump-era approvals of oil and gas infrastructure, despite President Biden’s pledge to aggressively cut emissions from fossil fuels, a major driver of climate change. The pipeline, which is known as Line 3 and is being built by Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Energy, has been the focus of mass protests in recent weeks.

Mr. Biden could still decide to withdraw the federal permits that the pipeline depends upon for construction to proceed. But for now, the administration is defending a decision by the United States Army Corps of Engineers to issue those permits. That decision was made in the closing days of the Trump Administration.

The clash between Mr. Biden’s pledges on climate change and his recent decisions has disappointed those who had hoped that the United States would finally start taking aggressive steps to ward off the worst effects of global warming. It also illustrates the difficulties of weaning the country off the oil and gas that has long powered its economy.

Indigenous groups have also been trying to flex newfound political clout. Native Americans, like the secretary of the interior, Deb Haaland, now hold important positions within the Biden administration and have said they intend to hold Mr. Biden to his campaign promises on racial equity, particularly for tribal communities.

“We are extremely disappointed that the Biden Administration continues the Trump Administration’s policy of ignoring tribal rights, environmental justice, and climate concerns in favor of fossil fuel industry profits,” Moneen Nasmith, of the environmental legal organization Earthjustice, one of the lawyers on the case, said in an email. “If the president is genuine in his pledge to take climate justice and tribal rights seriously, his administration must stop defending the Trump Administration’s decision.”

The Enbridge project, which received its final approvals under President Donald J. Trump, is a 340-mile rerouting in a wider pipeline network. Once completed, it would carry 760,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta across northern Minnesota and into Wisconsin to the tip of Lake Superior.

It would replace an older crude oil pipeline, built in the 1960s, that has had problems with corrosion, leaks and spills, forcing Enbridge in 2008 to reduce its capacity by half. In 2015, Enbridge cited corroding pipes and future oil demand to say it would reroute Line 3, a move that would allow it to restore its original capacity.

The administration’s support for the pipeline is “a betrayal of the Indian people,” said Winona LaDuke, executive director and a co-founder of Honor the Earth, a Native environmental advocacy organization that is one of the leading groups opposed to the pipeline. “We intend to keep opposing this pipeline,” she said. “We will file more legal challenges. Expect more resistance.”

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, together with several environmental groups, are fighting the pipeline in federal court, one of three main legal challenges to the project.

The tribes argue that the Army Corps of Engineers broke the law by giving the pipeline a permit without properly evaluating how the pipeline could damage the wetlands and waterways it would traverse.

The pipeline would pass through treaty-protected tribal lands, they stress, including watersheds that support wild rice, a staple food and an important element of cultural heritage for local tribes. And, in the event of a spill, the heavy oil traveling through the pipeline could sink to the bottom of rivers and streams, complicating a cleanup, environmental groups warn.

The pipeline would also carry a particularly dirty form of oil that, when burned, would put nearly 200 million tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere annually during the pipeline’s lifetime, according to the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement. That is the equivalent impact of emissions from 45 coal-fired power plants, or 38 million cars.

In its brief, filed overnight by the Justice Department in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Biden administration said that the Corps had considered a reasonable range of alternatives, including protections for wetlands, wild rice and cultural resources. It also said the Corps had met its obligations under the Clean Water Act. The Biden administration filing pressed the court to reject the tribes’ legal challenge.

In a statement, an Enbridge spokesman, Michael Barnes, welcomed the administration’s filing, saying it “lays out the very thorough review behind the science-based approval.”

Enbridge worked with local tribes in what Mr. Barnes called “the longest and most extensive” consultation process of its kind for an energy project. He added that the company was required under a consent decree reached during the Obama administration to replace its older pipeline.

Construction is on track to be completed late this year, Mr. Barnes said. The court is also expected to reach a decision on the case this year.

The White House declined to comment. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Line 3 expansion had been seen as a test of the Biden administration’s commitment to tackling climate change.

In his first week as president, Mr. Biden signed an executive order vowing to address climate change, rejoined the Paris climate agreement and canceled another pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would also have carried the product of Canada’s oil sands, one of the dirtiest forms of energy. The Biden administration also recently suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and said this week that it would order a tough environmental review on another of Enbridge’s oil pipeline projects, Line 5, which runs under the Great Lakes. Enbridge has said that will delay that pipeline’s construction.

Yet at the same time, the Biden administration has defended a huge oil drilling operation proposed on Alaska’s North Slope and has taken other actions that could guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades.
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I for one am shocked, shocked I tell you, that the American political establishment would violate treaty rights and try and force through a pipeline project under a Democratic government as well as under a Republican one!
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Broomstick »

Well, Enbridge has managed to ram through their projects and dump oil on White folks, don't know why I'd expect them to treat anyone else any differently. And Enbridge pipelines (one of which runs near to my current residence) have been approved and installed and run under administrations from both parties.

I don't approve of it, either.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Tribble »

So if they had kept to the original route and simply replaced the existing pipeline things wouldn’t be as big a problem?

Is the new route significantly riskier than the current existing one?

Or this this another “ban evilz Canadian oilz” kinda thing?

Tbh Hard to take the ladder seriously if that’s the case - even if Canada stopped all fossil fuel production in its entirety on short notice the rest of the world will just pick up the slack (including the US).

Oil elsewhere may be cleaner in one sense but im not exactly thrilled of the prospect of being even more dependent on the US than we already are (or such lovely places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Russia etc).
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by loomer »

Tribble wrote: 2021-06-25 04:07pm So if they had kept to the original route and simply replaced the existing pipeline things wouldn’t be as big a problem?

Is the new route significantly riskier than the current existing one?

Or this this another “ban evilz Canadian oilz” kinda thing?

Tbh Hard to take the ladder seriously if that’s the case - even if Canada stopped all fossil fuel production in its entirety on short notice the rest of the world will just pick up the slack (including the US).

Oil elsewhere may be cleaner in one sense but im not exactly thrilled of the prospect of being even more dependent on the US than we already are (or such lovely places like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Russia etc).
It's generally frowned on to violate treaty rights in order to install a hazardous pipeline from a company with a proven track record of devastating oil spills on the lands of marginalized peoples, so it's a little more complex than 'ban evilz canadian oilz' given the enormously important 'don't fucking violate your treaties, you assholes'. You may wish to look into the concept of infrastructural violence and its necropolitical dimension, since this is a pretty clear cut example of it.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Broomstick »

Ahem.

I'd change one line of your post to

"...a company with a proven track record of devastating oil spills on the lands of marginalized peoples everywhere it has located a pipeline."

While I understand loomer's focus is the abuse and mistreatment of indigenous peoples, this company doesn't just inflect its damage on the marginalized. They've gotten away with doing this to everyone, minority and majority peoples, urban as well as wilderness settings. This is an instance where I think (of course, feel free to disagree) that an argument can be made that what benefits the indigenous benefits all, and that breaking these treaties does matter, to everyone, and not just "those people over there".

Too many people think "what does it matter to me if scrubland gets wrecked and some poor people get displaced?" It matters because this company can hurt the disinterested urban dweller just as it can hurt the tribal people. If people can't be appealed to out of decency, justice, and shared humanity then appeal to their baser instincts of selfish preservation and self interest. If they don't care about the land rights of others then you need to explain to them why giving a damn about the rights of others can benefit them and their rights.

But yeah, I absolutely agree "we signed a treaty and we should keep our word" SHOULD be enough... but in reality it's not.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by loomer »

Yes, that's fair.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Solauren »

You know, I'm not sure it's the Biden administration in of itself that's doing this, but just the existing apparatus of the United States government continuing on. This was approved in the closing days of Trump, so about 5 months ago.

The challenge is just now going to court. (Which is actually pretty quick for this sort of thing).

It also doesn't sound like Biden's people put in much resistance, just asking a judge, "Hey, can you toss it out? No, okay, let it go to trial."
(especially since the various treaties pretty much prevent this being tossed out when actually followed or enforced.)

Because construction can't start until the court challenges are all done, I'm hoping, that the Biden administration wants and expects this to lose in court. That would be a Trump-era decision, defeated by the courts, that would set legal precedent that can be used to stop, and removal, similiar pipelines through native territory. Something any native group could use in court.

Without Biden having to do a damn thing.

If that fails, Biden still has the option of dealing with it directly, but he'd have to deal with each pipeline directly himself, versus giving the natives the tools to do it themselves.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by loomer »

Solauren wrote: 2021-06-26 09:12am You know, I'm not sure it's the Biden administration in of itself that's doing this, but just the existing apparatus of the United States government continuing on. This was approved in the closing days of Trump, so about 5 months ago.

The challenge is just now going to court. (Which is actually pretty quick for this sort of thing).

It also doesn't sound like Biden's people put in much resistance, just asking a judge, "Hey, can you toss it out? No, okay, let it go to trial."
(especially since the various treaties pretty much prevent this being tossed out when actually followed or enforced.)

Because construction can't start until the court challenges are all done, I'm hoping, that the Biden administration wants and expects this to lose in court. That would be a Trump-era decision, defeated by the courts, that would set legal precedent that can be used to stop, and removal, similiar pipelines through native territory. Something any native group could use in court.

Without Biden having to do a damn thing.

If that fails, Biden still has the option of dealing with it directly, but he'd have to deal with each pipeline directly himself, versus giving the natives the tools to do it themselves.
Biden has the capacity to cancel the project, and has elected not to. There is zero indication that he has directed the DoJ to throw the case, and it actually wouldn't have the capacity to set the kind of precedent you're expecting unless it hit superior courts. Meanwhile, construction is ongoing with all attendant risk and irreparable damage to the wetlands covered under the treaty (and the court that blocked an injunction to prevent construction even agreed about that damage being inevitable!) There's not really much room to view Biden's actions favourably here, since at best - if you're right - he's going to allow them to actually build the damn thing and probably operate it while litigation drags on with high fiscal costs to the Bands and to American taxpayers in the hopes that the courts will make the right choice.
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Solauren »

The natives have the right to block access to their land. Why are they not doing that?
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by loomer »

Solauren wrote: 2021-06-26 05:31pm The natives have the right to block access to their land. Why are they not doing that?
They've been trying. It turns out that when the government is set on violating treaty rights, it's rather hard to actually stop them. The complication is significant parts of the pipeline aren't on land held by the relevant Bands, but the geology and hydrology of the area means their treaty lands will be impacted both by construction and by any spills regardless.
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
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Re: Biden regime to pursue high-pollution Line 3 pipeline against wishes of Red Lake Band and White Earth Band

Post by Solauren »

Okay, that means that if absolutely needed, the pipeline could potentially avoid those areas, but still impact them.

Yeah, that requires more then letting a court challenge run. At the least, Biden should put the project on hold until the court challenges are exhausted.
I've been asked why I still follow a few of the people I know on Facebook with 'interesting political habits and view points'.

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