The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it will allow Energy Transfer's Dakota Access oil pipeline to keep running, after an environmental permit was scrapped last year, a blow to activists who wanted to see the line shut.
The Dakota Access pipeline will remain in operation while the federal government reviews its environmental impacts.
Lawyer Ben Schifman, who represented the federal government, said the Biden administration is requiring the pipeline to abide by conditions that were set in a now-vacated permit that allowed for its construction but “has not taken any additional action.”
However, Schifman left the door open for potential changes in the future, saying it’s a matter of “continuing discretion.”
Government attorney Ben Schifman told a federal judge on Friday that the Army Corps of Engineers, which handles permits for the pipeline, "is essentially in a continuous process of evaluating" and gathering information. An attorney representing the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been challenging the pipeline, said he is "deeply disappointed."
"The company gets to keep the benefits of operating the pipeline that was never properly authorized while the community has to bear the risks," said attorney Jan Hasselman. "It's not right. It's a continuation of a terrible history."
His comments come after an appeals court ruled that an easement that allowed for the pipeline’s construction did not undergo a sufficient environmental review.
The appeals court reversed a lower court’s decision to also drain the pipeline of oil and stop its operations, and sent the issue back to the lower court.
The appeals court also gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) the opportunity to shut the pipeline down during the environmental review process, saying “it may well be" that "the law or the Corps’s regulations oblige the Corps to vindicate its property rights by requiring the pipeline to cease operation.”
The 1,200 mile-long underground pipeline carries hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. It began flowing in 2017.
Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) ships up to 570,000 barrels of North Dakota’s crude production to the U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast. It is the largest pipeline out of the Bakken region, where more than 1 million barrels of oil are produced daily.
