Standing Rock Commentary
By
Dave Harbour
Sunday, we alerted readers to Presidential interference with due process and how the venerable U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had been led to reject a reasonable right of way easement following development of a significant legal record.
Today, we note the similarity of the North Dakota Access easement rejection, the Keystone XL Pipeline presidential disapproval and the EPA’s unconstitutional and pre-emptive rejection of Alaska’s Pebble project. All are examples of federal overreach and perversion of the Constitutional guarantee of due process.
Keystone XL Project
In the case of Keystone XL, due to its Canadian/U.S. routing, the State Department was the lead regulatory agency under both Secretaries Clinton and Kerry. The State Department’s due process, after careful analysis, found in favor of the project on various occasions. President Obama even indicated that he was open to approving the project before he rejected it on political grounds after it had been blessed during a tortuous, legal process. (References: NYT, Wiki 1 & 2, When Trust is Trussed In Webs Of Abuse)
Following the Keystone XL project rejection, we offered this March 2015 commentary, apologizing to the world for our President’s decision on the basis that:
- thousands will not have jobs, and
- U.S. energy prices are likely to be higher, and
- government unemployment and social expenses will be higher, and
- scores/hundreds of local, state and national governments will not have badly needed project tax revenue, and
- because of the arbitrary and capricious nature of Obama’s veto, the country’s “rule of law and reliance on due process” is further shaken (Ref: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.), and
- uncountable personal lives will have been affected in negative ways as unemployment, involuntary transfers, divorces and marriages, home ownership, manufacturing, health, and other human conditions are affected, and
- project demand for foreign goods and services will affect the economy beyond North American borders, and
- countries wishing and planning for aggression against North America’s people and economies will be given indirect aid and comfort.
Pebble Project
This mining project was a lawful venture – a world class copper and gold prospect on Alaska state land. The company investigating the feasibility of the project had not submitted any construction permits to either the federal or state government. Nevertheless, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), took steps to preempt the project before receiving a permit application. To deny a lawful natural resource development project before considering its various environmental permit applications is a chilling rejection of the Constitutional guarantee of due process. To preempt such a project operating on Alaska state-leased lands puts the rule of law, in our opinion, into a double jeopardy. Reference: “A Pebble Tossed Into The Pond….”
We would note that a major opponent of the Pebble project was an Alaska millionaire – owner of a fishing lodge in the Pebble project vicinity – who funded animosity and opposition to the project, clearing the way for EPA’s overreaching action. The lodge owner, Bob Gillam, is seeking a political appointment with the Trump administration, Secretary of Interior. We think that President-elect Trump’s thorough program of vetting Cabinet-level candidates will reveal what a poor appointment this would be for Alaska and the nation.
The Dakota Access Pipeline Project
Our readers have seen much about this contemporary project. Community organizers from around the country have gathered in the great energy producing state of North Dakota to protest the granting of a minor easement to the Dakota Access Pipeline (Project description here). The overall project is nearing completion. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers easement being protested was approved and litigated. The Corps has now reversed itself and is withholding approval.
Below are some comments we noted yesterday from a Fox News interview of a former regulatory colleague, North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer, whose points we believe can only lead readers to the conclusion that the White House ordered the formerly objective and respected Corps of Engineers to remove its planned easement approval on political grounds which violate the company’s Constitutional guarantee of due process.
Our Notes re: Congressman Cramer’s Dakota Access Pipeline project (NDA) points:.
- Legally permitted pipeline, reversal of previously approved decision
- NDA followed all the rules, all the laws.
- Received over 200 permits
- 408 permit from corps, president stepped in to override
- Law has been followed by pipeline
- 4 billion spent, pipeline almost done
- Rerouting is far more impactful
- Standing Rock Tribe. Project not on tribal land. A dozen pipelines upstream of Standing Rock tribe. The Tribe has the sovereign right to govern themselves. Pipeline is off reservation in existing corridor where there is a gas pipeline and high voltage transmission line
- Trump has to say it is up to corps of engineers, unusual for a president to impose himself on decision
- DC appellate court has already upheld project
- Protestors don’t get to destroy property, slash tires, trespass, etc.… Protest is co-opted by activists
* * *
Northern Gas Pipelines has documented many instances of this Administration’s disregard for 1) the Congressional role in government, 2) due process rights of private and corporate citizens, and 3) the proper, non-overreaching responsibilities of the Executive branch of government.
The above three, current and past, high-visibility Executive Branch examples of overreaching authority should prove useful to the new, Trump administration.
Obama Imposed Politics On Pipeline Due Process – Trump Can Restore Due Process
FUELFIX/Bloomberg. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to deny a permit for Energy Transfer Partners to build a section of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota is likely to be a temporary setback.
While the decision by President Barack Obama’s administration prevents the pipeline’s completion for now, analysts and Republican leaders have said Energy Transfer will probably receive the approval it seeks after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“The Obama administration’s refusal to issue an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline violates the rule of law and fails to resolve the issue,” North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, a Republican, said in an email. “Instead, it passes the decision off to the next administration, which has already indicated it will approve the easement, and in the meantime perpetuates a difficult situation for North Dakotans.”
Trump has expressed support for Dakota Access as recently as Dec. 1.
Has Alaska’s Governor Fallen Off His Rocker?
Commentary by
Dave Harbour
Bill Walker, Governor of Alaska. NGP file photo by Dave Harbour.
We wonder if wisely governing America’s 49th state is simply too much for Governor Bill Walker.
After all, his career has been distinguished by promoting uneconomic gas commercialization projects for decades…at the cost of local municipalities for that promotion, we assume, as they hoped to attract more Oil & Gas Property Tax revenue into their small town coffers (i.e. North Slope, Fairbanks and Valdez local governments).
The local taxpayers in those areas are apparently not upset at the lost gas promotion dollars paid out over the years. However, improperly attacking one of Alaska’s major investors as an elected representative of all Alaskan citizens is a greater diplomatic failing, in order of magnitude.
We would urge the governor to focus on Alaska’s principle challenge, successfully overcoming his state’s current fiscal crisis, rather than chasing a pipe dream whose economic feasibility has yet to be proven.
Walker should also accept another reality. He often says that an Alaska North Slope gas commercialization project is Alaska’s economic “number one get-well card“. The ignored reality is that if a gas project came on stream under the most expedited schedule, it would come several years too late to rescue a functionally bankrupt state government.
If we heard this report below while discussing Alaska state affairs in a group of friends, we would instinctively react to Walker’s arrogant words with an incredulous, “Who in the heck does he think he is?” A governor is a public servant not a dictator. He is improperly challenging one of the finest most intellectually honest companies in the world. Here are the lead paragraphs in a report, ably presented by the ADN’s Alex DeMarban:
An October letter from Gov. Bill Walker to an ExxonMobil executive suggests the governor deeply distrusts the company when it says it will continue to support the $55 billion Alaska liquefied natural gas project as the state takes it over.
“Please do not take steps to thwart Alaska’s ability to monetize our gas,” the governor says in the Oct. 14 letter to Jim Flood, an ExxonMobil vice president.
The governor also asks the Houston oil giant to be complimentary of the project when speaking with potential buyers of North Slope natural gas
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