Graphic by Landon Sheeley #NoDAP.
THE images of the protest camp at Standing Rock were reminiscent of scenes in the 19th century of proud native Americans wearing beautiful feathered headdresses opposing settlers on horseback. For months tribespeople, environmental activists and veterans endured often freezing temperatures at the Oceti Sakowin and two other camps around 40 miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota, to protest against the construction of the last part of the Dakota Access pipeline, which they say threatens the Standing Rock Sioux’s water supply and their sacred sites. On December 4th, they scored an unexpected victory when the Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, announced that it would deny Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the developer of the pipeline, a permit to cross the Missouri river. Thousands of protesters cheered and chanted to cries of Mni Wiconi, or water is life.
ETP is furious about the corps’s decision, which it claims was “just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favour of currying favour with a narrow and extreme political constituency”. The construction of the pipeline aiming to transport around half a million barrels of oil each day from the Bakken formation in western North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois is around 90% complete. ETP and its three partners have already sunk $3 billion into the pipeline, which was supposed to be finished by January 1st next year. It mostly traverses privately owned land, but the government must sign off on permission to drill under Lake Oahe, which dams the Missouri river. Its refusal to do so requires a new environmental impact statement that looks at alternative routes. This will take months.
ETP is furious about the corps’s decision, which it claims was “just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favour of currying favour with a narrow and extreme political constituency”. The construction of the pipeline aiming to transport around half a million barrels of oil each day from the Bakken formation in western North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois is around 90% complete. ETP and its three partners have already sunk $3 billion into the pipeline, which was supposed to be finished by January 1st next year. It mostly traverses privately owned land, but the government must sign off on permission to drill under Lake Oahe, which dams the Missouri river. Its refusal to do so requires a new environmental impact statement that looks at alternative routes. This will take months.
Republicans attacked the Obama administration for blocking the pipeline construction. On December 4th Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, tweeted it was “big-government decision-making at its worst” and that he was looking forward “to putting this anti-energy presidency behind us”. Kevin Cramer, a congressman from North Dakota who is under consideration for the post of energy secretary in the incoming administration, called President Obama “lawless” and vowed to fight for the pipeline. Jack Dalrymple, the Republican governor of North Dakota, said the decision was a “serious mistake” that makes the life of the local police more difficult. A spokesman for Mr Trump said he supports construction of the pipeline but would review the situation once in the White House. The president-elect was an investor in ETP and has received campaign donations of more than $100,000 from the chief executive of ETP.
The developers are rushing to finish the construction of the controversial pipeline because they are under financial pressure, not because of a need for increased local pipeline capacity, argues Clark Williams-Derry of the Sightline Institute, an environmental-research institution. According to court documents oil drillers have the right to void their contracts with ETP if the pipeline is not finished by January 1st, which could result in steep losses for the developers. The contracts were signed when the Bakken formation’s oil production was thriving, but in the autumn of 2014 the oil price collapsed and has not recovered since. Bakken oil production has fallen by more than 20% since its peak, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Mr Williams-Derry argues that the pipeline is a superfluous project being built to preserve the favourable contract terms negotiated by its developers before the oil price tanked. He thinks existing infrastructure can easily handle the transport of Bakken oil. Vicki Granado, a spokesperson for ETP, says January 1st was the original in-service date and denies the company has any contractual obligation tied to the date. The company could sue the corps for violating due process, but it is likely to hold off until Mr Trump moves into the White House.
Hardly anyone on either side of the political divide doubts that the president-elect will approve the easement. But it might take time to settle the matter, which means that ETP and its partners will take a painful financial hit. The delay will cost the company $83m a month, or $2.7m a day, according to court documents. That is a powerful financial incentive for protesters to stay put in the new year, as many have promised to do.*
IX
Kin 94: White Electric Wizard
I activate in order to enchant
Bonding receptivity
I seal the output of timelessness
With the electric tone of service
I am guided by the power of endlessness.
In the cosmic evolutionary nature, whenever a planet attains noosphere the planetary mind it then becomes capable of receiving the processes that create galactic culture.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Ajna Chakra (Gamma Plasma)
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