The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community successfully stood strong for years to protect their people, water, and sacred lands from the threat of the Keystone XL Pipeline. UAB also encourages applications from individuals with disabilities and veterans. 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. Because of the highly corrosive and acidic nature of the tar sands oil, there contains a higher likelihood that the pipeline will leak. Back in 2017, the mainline of the Keystone pipeline ruptured in South Dakota outside of the Lake Traverse Reservation, home to the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate. 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. Watch President Bordeauxs full State of the Tribe address. This mapping tool hopes to bridge that gap by giving communities the ability to see how close this deadly tar sands snake comes to their homes, communities and lands. Dealing in tar sands oil is an expensive endeavor. January: Obama rejects the Keystone Pipeline, saying the December bill did not allow enough time to review the new route. These activities could cause irreparable harm to tribal waterways, cultural resources, and minerals in the path of the pipelines easement. Pipeline representatives start visiting landowners potentially affected by Keystone XL. The pipelines proposed route crosses through traditional Lakota homelands and treaty territories, and will affect not only the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, but also Native Nations in Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska. 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. (For evidence, note the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo River, Michigan, a disaster that cost Enbridge more than a billion dollars in cleanup fees and took six years to settle in court.) sued the Trump Administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Great Falls Division, for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process. With this construction, workers will descend on the communities along the pipelines proposed path. U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Second Class Lauren Jorgensen. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initially stated that, on a wells-to-wheels basis, tar sands oil emits 17 percent more carbon than other types of crude, but several years later, the State Department revised this number upward, stating that the emissions could be 5 percent to 20 percent higher than previously indicated. That means burdening the planet with an extra 178.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, the same impact as 38.5 million passenger vehicles or 45.8 coal-fired power plants. In a last-ditch attempt to revive the Keystone XL pipeline, 21 states led by attorneys . US President Joe Biden has cancelled permits for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office. It has been determined that the pervasive violence against indigenous women amounts to genocide. Indigenous leaders are encouraging him to go even further and cancel more controversial fossil fuel projects, such as the Dakota Access pipeline. We look forward to working with the new administration to ensure that, going forward, Native peoples are included in decision-making discussions and policy development that affect their land, people, and treaty rights.. All construction was stopped. Tar sands oil is thicker, more acidic, and more corrosive than lighter conventional crude, and this ups the likelihood that a pipeline carrying it will leak. This isnt your grandfathers typical oil, says Anthony Swift, director of NRDCs Canada project. Public documents about extractive projects are often difficult to find and hard to read. Its a pipeline through America, and it threatens to be a disaster for us if it leaks poisons on the way. Leading scientists and economists came out in opposition to the project, in addition to unions and world leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former president Jimmy Carter (together, these and other Nobel laureates have written letters against the project). Originally founded as a whites-only city, or sundown town, since the 1980s it has become fairly diverse with one of the most diverse school systems in the United States. 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. How an unlikely coalition of environmental activists stopped the destructive tar sands oil pipeline. That spill, not far from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyates reservation, was the second Keystone spill in South Dakota in seven years. The District Court blocked pipeline construction until the government and TC Energy met those legal requirements. Goldtooth called Bidens decision a vindication of the hard work and struggle many indigenous communities have put forth in protest of the pipeline. The Native American Rights Fund represents the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community in this case. 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. 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. The Natural Resources Defense Council works to safeguard the earth - its people, The first, a southern leg, had already been completed and now runs between Cushing, Oklahoma, and Port Arthur, Texas. The pipeline continually threatens the sanctity of indigenous sacred lands and the purity and safety of the local water supply. At every turn, the Tar Sands Invasion would put people and the environment in harm's way. An influx of itinerant workers, like those required for pipeline man-camps, correlates with increased sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sexual trafficking. August-September: Keystone XL protesters organize two weeks of civil disobedience at the White House. 9 Result (s) Found. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, about 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day will flow from Alberta, Canada, to the refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, which are built to handle. The Keystone XL pipeline, briefly explained The Keystone XL pipeline became an almost perfect example of the various stakeholders Native communities, climate activists, scientists,. President Trump did not like these decisions. The federal government argues that the treaties dont matter. It connects Steele City, Nebraska, to Cushing, Oklahoma. Pipelines like the Keystone XL and Dakota pipelines as well as other fossil fuel projects actively pollute native land and water resources as well as consistently contribute to global warming due to their high greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier this year, the Keystone pipeline leaked 1,800 gallons of oil less than half a mile from the Mississippi River. 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. Of course, TransCanada claims that KXL will be safe, that it will be state of the art. The United States must answer to the Tribes for violations of the treaties and be instructed to honor them. By that point, Keystone XL faced an unfriendly administration, numerous legal challenges, declining oil prices, worsening climate impacts, and a growing movement of climate organizersalong the pipelines route and around the worldunwilling to look the other way. Keystone XL was a terrible idea from the start, Swift said. 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. The Tribes are asking the court to declare the review process in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and to rescind the illegal issuance of the Keystone XL pipeline presidential permit. Some three million miles of oil and gas pipelines already run through our country, but KXL wasnt your average pipeline, and tar sands oil isnt your average crude. The goal was to transport 830,000 barrels of crude, tar sand oil to refineries on the American Gulf Coast each day. 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. update email soon. EPA staff perform oil and sediment sampling near Battle Creek, Michigan, after the Kalamazoo spill. Today, the Presidents of Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community were in federal court to invoke their sacred inheritance from these treatiesbecause the KXL pipeline is exactly the kind of depredation the Tribes sought to prevent, NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth explained after the hearings. The notorious tar sands pipeline was a lightning rod in the fight against climate change and the seemingly unstoppable oil industry. Since 2015, CAMP has worked with Indigenous and environmental organizations to build interactive maps that tell stories about climate justice across the Americas. The Keystone XL Developer's Position TransCanada, a Canadian corporation, owns or has interests in $48 billion of long-life assets primarily pipelines and power-generation facilities in Canada, the United States and Mexico and is expected to see $38 billion in new projects completed by the end of this decade 18. Only until November 18, 2019, you can comment on the KXL Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS). Phase 1 of the Keystone Pipeline was permitted in March 2008. In the meantime, the court issued an injunction pursuant to the Clean Water Act in another case that prevents TransCanada from crossing any rivers. Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California. NRDC advocates were part of a broad coalition that helped stop Keystone XLfor good. In the face of the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the Ft. Belknap Indian Community and Rosebud Sioux Tribe asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order on pipeline construction. In that case, brought by a coalition of environmental organizations, the District Court had decided that the federal government did not follow the law when it issued its 2017 permit for the pipeline. We invite anyone interested in providing testimony to attend. Now, after the courts have told the United States it must follow the law, President Trump has attempted to circumvent the courts by issuing a new permit. But the movement has had setbacks: a federal judge in Louisisana recently. a new mini-documentary entitled Take Action: Protect Our Land., their response to the defendants motions to dismiss. It celebrated its 40th Anniversary last year, and, even after all this time, is still facing controversy. Whats more, the whole process of getting the oil out and making it usable creates three to four times the carbon pollution of conventional crude extraction and processing. This hearing will focus on the United States motion to dismiss. Even worse, building Keystone XL would have meant enduring those risks just to send the fuel to our overseas rivalsand the profits to Big Oil. Until 2016,Canadaofficially objected to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We must ensure our people are safe, and that the economic security, health, welfare, and general well-being of Rosebud and our members are protected. TransCanada estimated South Dakota spills at no more than once every 41 years. President Trump also issued a cross-border permit to the pipeline developer, a permit that had been long sought after for the developers. 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. 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. This new permit is a blatant attempt to avoid any environmental analysis for the pipeline that United States law and courts have required. But activists say the water protector strategy has proven effective with the cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline. The second segment was the hotly contested 1,209-mile northern lega shortcut of sortsthat would have run from Hardisty, Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota to Steele City, Nebraska. Some of the current concerns are rooted in our responsibility to take care of Unci Maka, which is grandmother earth. The court rightly found that today.. June: TransCanada announces it will buy ConocoPhillips stake in Keystone. 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 . This story was originally published on April 7, 2017, and has been updated with new information and links. They were bargained for with the blood of our ancestors. Large stretches of Keystone have been shut down. Rosebud has land use, environmental, and utilities codes that apply, and TransCanada must comply with Rosebud law on Rosebud land. Tracey Osborne, Climate Alliance Mapping Project 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. On his fourth day in office, Trump signed an executive order to allow Keystone XL to move forward. A study published in early 2020, co-authored by TC Energys own scientists, found that the anti-corrosion coating on the projects pipes was damaged from being stored outside and exposed to the elements for the last decade, notes NRDC senior attorney Jaclyn Prange, who spent years working on KXL litigation. The Keystone XL pipeline was proposed by the energy infrastructure company TC Energy. 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. They prohibited any construction until the Trump Administration and TransCanada conduct the necessary review. The 2019 supplemental environmental impact statement has numerous issues and shortcomings. February: TransCanada Corporation proposes the Keystone Pipeline project. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House on March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. Our health and safety should take priority over companies profits. But immediately after taking office, President Donald Trump brought the zombie project back to life, along with the legal battles against it. April: TransCanada submits a new route to officials in Nebraska for approval. We cannot allow another pipeline to be constructed, dangerously close to yet another tribal community, for the benefit of a foreign energy company.. Today, as in the past, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community drink the water that comes from the rivers and the ground sources to provide for their communities. Additionally, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe operates its own water delivery system, which is part of the Mni Wiconi Rural Water Supply Project. January: The Cushing MarketLink Phase 3a pipeline goes online. In an unprecedented action, President Trump has attempted to circumvent the law by issuing TransCanada yet another presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The court also noted that the Tribes could file a new suit against the Bureau of Land Management given it has approved the pipeline in the remainder of the United States. June: Phase 1 of the Keystone Pipeline goes online. 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. However, despite youth and elderly leaders being in the front during the inevitable standoffs with police, Mace, tasers, and rubber bullets were used against the protestors. They have laws protecting their water and those laws must be respected. Today, the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Great Falls Division, heard arguments in Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Trump.