In June 2021, TC Energy announced that it was abandoning its plans for building the pipeline for goodputting an end to a fossil fuel project that had loomed over waterways, communities, and the climate for more than a decade. This pipeline transports 470,000 barrels of crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois, over 1,172 miles. NARF Staff Attorney Matthew Campbell responded to the action, The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community have both poured tremendous effort and resources to defend their treaty rights and the safety of their tribal communities during the last few years. Additionally, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe operates its own water delivery system, which is part of the Mni Wiconi Rural Water Supply Project. With the original permit revoked, the Ninth Circuit yesterday decided to dismiss as moot the case based on that original permit. Meanwhile, major new tar sands projects stopped moving forward, despite investments from the government of Alberta, Canada. The people and the planet can claim more than a few victoriesand 2019 is looking better already. 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. Bulldozers were seen this week grading the land in Tripp County, South Dakota, adjacent to Rosebud lands. Of course, TransCanada claims that KXL will be safe, that it will be state of the art. In addition, the possibility of damaging community water supplies, valuable agricultural lands, and wildlife habitats is not a cost our clients are willing to bear on behalf of a foreign extractive company propping up a dying energy industry. NARF will help the Tribe make sure it has considered all of its options for ensuring the safety of the Tribes citizens, territory, and resources., This is their land, their water, said NARF Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth. Trespassing into Rosebuds mineral estates, held in trust, without Rosebuds consent is a violation of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties. The water has been there to support the people on their ancestral lands since time immemorial. They are proposing to do so without the tribal consent required under the treaty law. An influx of itinerant workers, like those required for pipeline man-camps, correlates with increased sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sexual trafficking. Indeed, moving crude by rail to the Gulf costs substantially more than moving it by pipe. It has also been determined that tar sands oil emits 17 percent more carbon than other forms of crude oil. Regardless of the new permit and political maneuvering, the President is required to honor the treaties and the Constitution. Our Land Use, Environmental Protection, and Public Utilities Codes directly apply, and TC Energy has failed to comply with them. TransCanada's plan to dig a trench and bury part of its $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline right through this land has unearthed a host of Native opposition, resentments and ghosts of the . 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. After more than 10 years of tenacious protests, drawn-out legal battles, and flip-flopping executive orders spanning three presidential administrations, the Keystone XL pipeline is now gone for good. Farm to Table: The Worlds Largest Protest in India, 2023 The University of Alabama at Birmingham. 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. Opposition outside the courts was swift and strong as well. The Rosebud Sioux Tribejust like South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montanahas a duty to protect the health and welfare, of its citizens. Digital maps are a powerful way to educate the public about connections between oil and gas extraction, climate change, social justice, and Indigenous rights. NRDC advocates were part of a broad coalition that helped stop Keystone XLfor good. Heres everything you need to know about the historic KXL fightand why the pipelines cancellation has had no impact on current oil prices. When industry-friendly politicians took charge of both congressional houses in January 2015, their first order of business was to pass a bill to speed up approval of Keystone XL. The only claims dismissed are the ones that the Tribes conceded should be dismissed because they were based on an old permit. Between the threat of sexual violence and contraction of the coronoavirus, arrival of KXL construction workers in our homelands poses deadlier risks than ever before and must be stopped. Seated in a camping chair, Faith Spotted Eagle, 68, pulls a blanket around her to ward off the cold. (That effort failed.) Recent governmental reports contain new data about climate change, which necessitates new analysis. But the groundswell of public protest was up against a formidable opponenthundreds of millions spent on lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. Until 2016,Canadaofficially objected to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And these exports are more than 10 times the capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. the desecration and destruction of cultural, historic, and sacred sites; the endangerment of tribal members, especially women and children; damage to hunting and fishing resources, as well as the tribal health and economies associated with these activities; the impairment of federally reserved tribal water rights and resources; harm to tribal territory and natural resources in the inevitable event of Pipeline ruptures and spills; and. This is one of the reasons for the lawsuit. Keystone XL would have crossed agriculturally important and environmentally sensitive areas, including hundreds of rivers, streams, aquifers, and water bodies. It was expected to transport 830,000 barrels of Alberta tar sands oil per day to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. Opposition to Keystone XL centered on the devastating environmental consequences of the project. To that end, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission will be holding a public hearing on Tuesday, May 28, 2019, and Wednesday, May 29, 2019, to address the Keystone XL pipeline and its impacts on our territory and people. harm to the political integrity, economic stability, and health and welfare of the Tribes. Browse our map catalog downloadable PDFs and our interactive maps. Court Pulls Key Permit for Massive (and Dirty) Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Hey, Army Corps of EngineersShow Us Your Work in Your DAPL Report, Week 88: Trumps Runaway Train of Deregulation. Pipeline under construction in Alberta, Canada. NARF and our clients are confident in our claims against the construction of the pipeline, and we are optimistic the court will not allow this case to be dismissed. New climate change information requires a new environmental impact analysis. 840 miles (1,351 km) in the United States (Phillips County, Mont. During this time of uncertainty and crisis, NARF is committed to protecting the health, safety, and rights of Native Americans. Exactly how much was released will not be clear until it's all recovered, TC Energy said. Although TC Energy had twice been denied a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, on January 24, 2017, President Trump invited TC Energy to resubmit its application. 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.. 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. Construction has begun despite the fact that there are three lawsuits currently going on. February: TransCanada Corporation proposes the Keystone Pipeline project. Many had hoped that the disastrous project was finally done for in November 2015, when the Obama administration vetoed the pipelineacknowledging its pervasive threats to climate, ecosystems, drinking water sources, and public health. 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. April: The State Department suspends the regulatory process indefinitely, citing uncertainty about the court case in Nebraska. On March 23, 2017, the U.S. Department of State granted TransCanadas permit application and issued it a presidential permit to construct and operate the Keystone XL Pipeline. Oil trains wont get better brakes, air conditioners wont get safer chemicals, and children lose their EPA advocate. In late 2018 and early 2019, the courts repeatedly blocked TransCanadas attempts to start construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. 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. TransCanada must comply with Rosebud law. See our original complaint filed. Phase 2 and 3 did not require Presidential Permits and were built over several years starting in 2010. "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." The decision echoed a seven-year State Department review process with EPA input that concluded the pipeline would fail to serve national interests. In 2017, the Trump administration reversed Obamas veto, signing an executive order to advance the Keystone pipeline as well as a similar crude oil project, the Dakota Access Pipeline despite the many valid arguments made against the two pipelines. January: Trump signs a presidential memorandum inviting TransCanada to resubmit their application for a Presidential Permit and directing the Secretary of State, Department of the Interior, and Department of the Army to fast-track the decision. TransCanada's plan to dig a trench and bury part of its $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline right through this land has unearthed a host of Native American opposition, resentments and . The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community have government-to-government treaties with the United States that the President cannot violate. All construction was stopped. 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. on April 10, 2019, in Montana. The Keystone XL pipeline extension, proposed by TC Energy (then TransCanada) in 2008, was initially designed to transport the planets dirtiest fossil fuel, tar sands oil, to marketand fast. The tribes filed a response to TransCanadas motion for summary judgment and a memorandum in support of their own motion for partial summary judgment. The pipeline, which had severe environmental and human rights implications, has been on a long road towards failure. Since 2015, CAMP has worked with Indigenous and environmental organizations to build interactive maps that tell stories about climate justice across the Americas. 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. 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. Anchorage, AK (907) 276-0680 In 2017, the US State Department released a study which proved that carbon emissions could be between 5 and 20 percent higher than the original 17 percent estimation. 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. As an expansion of the companys existing Keystone Pipeline System, which has been operating since 2010 (and continues to send Canadian tar sands crude oil from Alberta to various processing hubs in the middle of the United States), the pipeline promised to dramatically increase capacity to process the 168 billion barrels of crude oil locked up under Canadas boreal forest. The total for the Keystone pipeline's 2017 gush onto. 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. See our request for intervention. 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. That spill, not far from the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyates reservation, was the second Keystone spill in South Dakota in seven years. Earlier this week, NARF filed a motion to intervene at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Indigenous Environmental Network v. U.S. Department of State case regarding the federal permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares . When they entered into treaties with the United States, the tribal nations meant to protect their natural resources (water, grasslands, and game) and keep people from crossing their lands. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) Tribes) in coordination with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, on September 10, 2018, sued the Trump Administration for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process. The obligation of the United States to uphold those treaties is paramount, and Keystone XLs current path cannot be approved without the Siangu Lakotas consent. To that end, the government must examine the potential impact of pipeline construction and man-camps on Native people, especially women and children. This undisputed fact, that the pipeline would cross Rosebud mineral estates held in trust, has several legal implications: The publicly available maps that the Tribes have seen show that the pipeline corridor also would cross Rosebud surface and mineral estates. Its no small feat extracting oil from tar sands, and doing so comes with steep environmental and economic costs. It was proposed to be an extension of the existing Keystone Pipeline System, which has been in operation since 2010. The "replacement" pipeline runs mostly on a completely new route through Minnesota, barreling through hundreds of lakes, rivers, aqueducts and wetlands. January: Nebraska Gov. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas, and also to oil tank farms and an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma. The federal government argues that the treaties dont matter. June-July: Increased opposition to Keystone XL includes legislators and scientists speaking out against the project; the Environmental Protection Agency questions the need for the pipeline extension. The federal court denied the United States federal governments and the TransCanadas (TC Energy) efforts to dismiss the Tribes case against the KXL Pipeline. 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. It also endangers the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water for Native and non-Native users residential and agricultural needs on the High Plains in eight states. June: Phase 1 of the Keystone Pipeline goes online. Meet some of the people who are striving to stop TransCanadas dirty tar sands oil pipeline once and for all. The goal was to transport 830,000 barrels of crude, tar sand oil to refineries on the American Gulf Coast each day. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Boulder, CO (303) 447-8760 Opposition emerges in Nebraska. You'll receive your first NRDC action alert and We are joined in a fight against an invisible enemy that we now know is highly contagious before its hosts even show symptoms, said President Bordeaux of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Based on these extraordinary circumstances, we ask that TransCanada halt any construction during this pandemic.. Even its maps do not give enough detail to show impacts on Indian lands. When the Obama administration refused to grant the cross-border permit necessary to build TC Energys Keystone XL oil pipeline in November 2015, it struck a blow against polluting powers and acknowledged the consensus on this misguided project from a wide swath of communities, experts, and organizations. This interactive tool is a powerful visual for Indigenous communities and our allies along the KXL route. While TransCanada replaced topsoil and reseeded the area affected by the spill, it will take decades for the lasting damage of the spill to be known and remedied. President Bidens executive order ending the construction of the Keystone XL is a very hopeful step forward, however it needs to serve as a pushing off point for the administration to continue furthering both environmental and indigenous rights. People and wildlife coming into contact with tar sands oil are exposed to toxic chemicals, and rivers and wetland environments are at particular risk from a spill. When you sign up you'll become a member of NRDC's Activist Network. (Indeed, Keystone XL was viewed as an essential ingredient in the oil industrys plans to triple tar sands production by 2030. And the risk that Keystone XL would have spilled was heightened because of the extended time the pipe segments were left sitting outside in stockpiles. In their permit application, TransCanada agreed to abide by tribal laws and regulation, which they have failed to do. Keystone XL Maps Map Terminated pipeline route The following map details the route of the terminated Keystone XL Pipeline and the current Keystone Pipeline System. 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). The Native American Rights Fund is prepared to fight to ensure those treaties are honored and the water is protected.. December: U.S. legislators pass a bill with a provision saying President Barack Obama must make a decision on the pipelines future in the next 60 days. September: TransCanada and ConocoPhillips file an application for the Keystone XL Phase 4 extension. And the President and TC Energy would like to run a pipeline of highly toxic, cancer-causing sludge called tar sands right through it. Last month, a Keystone Pipeline spill released more than 383,000 gallons of oilhalf of an Olympic swimming pool. This means an extra 178.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas would be emitted annually, a similar impact to 38.5 million cars. Paramount Network just released a new mini-documentary entitled Take Action: Protect Our Land. The documentary explores the potential impact of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline on our client, the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana. 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. Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Rodney M. Bordeaux spoke to the KXL issue, In approving the Keystone XL pipeline, the federal government repeatedly ignored treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, and widespread opposition to push forward the interests of a foreign oil and gas company. The authority to permit the pipeline falls within Congresss exclusive and plenary power to regulate foreign commerce. TransCanada's plan to dig a trench and bury part of its $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline right through this land has unearthed a host of Native American opposition, resentments and ghosts of the past.