Standing Rock and Beyond: U.S. Government Hides Documents, Court Hearing in Iowa

Rule of law? Yeah, right. Feds Admit They Withheld Key Documents from Standing Rock Sioux.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers purposefully withheld key studies that could have helped the tribe evaluate the risks [of the DAPL]. One report modeled damage from potential spills; another weighed the likelihood of spills; a third compared alternative routes and discussed the environmental justice concerns raised by the project. The revelation highlights the federal government’s perception of its limited responsibility to consult with tribes even on matters that could threaten its welfare.

Kristen Carpenter, Oneida Indian Nation visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School, was amazed to learn that the government had denied these documents to the tribe. “To me that’s stunning,” she says. “People have been camped out and facing violence for months, when this information has been available all along. It’s the very information that would have allowed them to participate more substantially. The tribes didn’t have enough information at their hands to be fully informed.”

The Fight Downstream

At another site along the route of the DAPL, the folks associated with Bold Iowa have been working hard. Hundreds of people have been arrested for direct actions, and today, there was a court hearing for landowners fighting the seizure of their property through "eminent domain" by a private corporation. The linked article also includes video of a march and press conference.

“Regardless of how the Judge rules today, we continue to see more and more people stepping forward to challenge the misuse of eminent domain. Big Oil and this pipeline company have tried hard to intimidate farmers and landowners, and as we’ve seen today, many refuse to back down, refuse to be pushed around,” said Ed Fallon, Bold Iowa director.

bold iowa_0.JPG

This eminent domain case is way bigger than just this pipeline,” says Steve Hickenbottom, a Jefferson County farmer and one of the landowners in the lawsuit. “It is an abuse of power that will have a lifetime of consequences. If they get away with this, the ride is just starting. Anyone could be next, and I do mean anyone. If our legal system and the Army Corps and any other government power cannot stop Dakota Access, then what really is next? How do you wield enough power to get law enforcement to come in against peaceful people and do what they are doing to them? The best thing we have going for us is our Tribal allies coming together and showing the rest of us what you have to do to get something stopped.”

keep it in the ground_0.JPG

The Pressure of Money

I've been encouraging people to Defund DAPL by removing their individual deposits from the banks that are invested in pipelines and other extractive industries. (Suggestions for how to do this and the full list of banks are here.)

To make an even bigger impact, municipalities, universities, and pension funds should be encouraged to also move their money. What banks are used by your city, university, or pension fund? Seattle, Minneapolis, and others have made moves. And now we're starting to see institutional investors question Energy Transfer Partners and their co-conspirators. A company called Nordea has issued a statement. I don't agree with the emphasis on rerouting, but this is still pressure that ETP, Sunoco, and Philips 66 will feel.

Selling the holdings in the three companies behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, i.e. Energy Transfer Partners, Sunoco Logistics Partners and Philips 66, would be needed:
• If the companies behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, in the next six-month period, make it clear that they will not respect the requirement to re-route the pipeline. In that case, Nordea’s Sustainable Finance team will recommend that our Responsible Investment Committee sells the holdings.
If the companies in question are found guilty of breaching the rights of the indigenous people. In that case, Nordea’s Sustainable Finance team will recommend selling the holdings.
• If the companies win legal proceedings regarding the stretch of the oil pipeline concerned, or if an altered political situation results in the companies being granted access to lay the pipeline through the standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s land, Nordea’s Sustainable Finance team will recommend selling the holdings.

Otherwise, Nordea will continue to attempt to influence the situation by being an active owner.

Oceti Sakowin Is Now Oceti Oyate

One sacred fire has been put out, and another has been lit. Here's a little vid (4:39) about life in camp.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s07P1e0eS4&feature=youtu.be]

Oceti Oyate.JPG

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Raggedy Ann's picture

“This eminent domain case is way bigger than just this pipeline,” says Steve Hickenbottom, a Jefferson County farmer and one of the landowners in the lawsuit. “It is an abuse of power that will have a lifetime of consequences. If they get away with this, the ride is just starting. Anyone could be next, and I do mean anyone. If our legal system and the Army Corps and any other government power cannot stop Dakota Access, then what really is next? How do you wield enough power to get law enforcement to come in against peaceful people and do what they are doing to them? The best thing we have going for us is our Tribal allies coming together and showing the rest of us what you have to do to get something stopped.”

Every American is at risk. We must be united. We must rise up. We must never give up or give in. Pleasantry

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

snoopydawg's picture

Then even more foreign companies would have even more power to use eminent domain.
There are so many people who are against the protesters for no reason I can understand, but maybe if they knew that foreign corporations had stolen American people's property then they'd start thinking that this is unacceptable. But of course they don't know about it because the news isn't covering it.
As I've written before, Bush signed an executive order against the use of eminent domain unless it helps the whole community.
I'm sure that Obama knows about this order.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Raggedy Ann's picture

We just are not safe. We must be on our toes.

up
0 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

hellinahandcart's picture

Which is how NAFTA got passed... Bush (elder) originally signed it, then Clinton pushed it through on an up or down vote-- because it had already been fast-tracked through Congress (a process invented by Nixon) and signed by Bush. Trump can be against TPP until the cows come home, but if Congress votes for it, he can't veto it because it has already been signed.
We are doing victory laps on something that could be passed by Congress on an up or down vote (remember House and Senate is Republican), no Presidential signature required.

up
0 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmuELBAeuHA]

The movement is growing.

up
0 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Breaking US-Tribal treaties is not just in the history books

up
0 users have voted.
dystopian's picture

With no small amount of fear and trepidation as I
risk a move beyond lurking ...

As I recall the first big case seizing private property with eminent domain for corporate greed profit was the CT case where a bunch of 100 year old houses lived in by families for generations was taken for a waterfront mall development. Maybe around Mystic?

The families fighting it took it to the SCOTUS. It was of course Scalia that led the ruling that the jobs it created meant it was for the public good, and therefore eminent domain seizure for profits was valid for the public commons good. This insane decision legalized stealing of anybodies land that stood in the way of corporate profits. It is one of the most evil blatant abuses of the spirit of a law ever. No prior sCOTUS saw this matter in this radical manner where simple private profit and a few jobs was grounds for eminent domain.

The people lost their houses, which were leveled. Then the crash came, the developers went bankrupt, the damned
thing never happened. But they got their precedent which has been viciously abused with reckless abandon ever since.

There is no mall, there are no jobs, but the multi-generational family homesteads were destroyed. Because maybe some money was to be made, but whoops, it didn't work out, sorry about your houses, without the sorry part. So now private profit is grounds for eminent domain to be enforced. For private profit was not the spirit of the law. Another place to shop is for the common good?

Developers, and now dirty energy people (frackers and pipeliners) have used the same tact abundantly ever since that decision. The KeystoneXL pipeline used it, the Trans-Pecos Pipeline people used it, they all bank on it, if not threaten with it now. My guess is without it the banks would not finance these accidents waiting to happen that we do not need. We are told it is for the common greater public good to put at risk entire aquifers.

Yet the tar sands in KeystoneXL folly were all for export, and private profit, not American energy independence. Which is another big selling lie. Much of what we are doing tapping fossil fuels (releasing methane) now is for profit export, not energy independence. If we had to keep it here Propane would be 25 cents a gallon. Imagine how the economy would be? That would be for the common good. So it is not going to happen. E.D., no not that, eminent domain, should
not apply, but does due to the CT SCOTUS decision.

Wasn't there a line in a Bob Dylan song that said "Money doesn't talk, it swears", or somesuch.

The government that called this for the public good are the ones now with a repeat loop playing "The Russians are coming!"

The other rabid violation of the spirit of the law is the Army Corps issuing a series of hundreds of the special Permit 12
"boat ramp" rule for projects affecting less than an acre of two, and cobbling them together for the pipeline permit! In order to avoid having to do an EIR/EIS. The permit was invented for small projects ONLY. The Army Corps is now
issuing a thousand of them together for a pipeline soley to avoid the spirit of the law. This is our exceptional government.

See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dakota-access-pipeline-protests-wate...

"The way the Corps has begun avoiding this transparent process is through what’s called nationwide permit 12. It’s essentially a blanket permit for pipelines up to a half-acre of impact, a pre-issued permit. The Corps has begun treating these 1,200-mile pipelines like a series of half-acre projects that each qualify under that exemption. This is a general permit that doesn’t mention oil spills or climate impacts and never talks about Native American tribes and cultural significance and sacred sites."

up
0 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

up
0 users have voted.
Citizen Of Earth's picture

I live in CT and watched that New London CT eminent domain case unfold in the news. There was a lot of public outrage over the case.

The final cost to the city and state for the purchase and bulldozing of the formerly privately held property was $78 million. The promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues had not materialized. As of 2014 the area remains an empty lot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

I didn't know about the Permit 12 abuse. Shameful to see the abuse coming directly from the govt (Army Corps) on behalf of private oil companies. So I suppose we can conclude that the Army Corps denial of the permit to route under the lake was only temporary in an effort to empty the encampments of water protectors.

up
0 users have voted.

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

Lookout's picture

Wasn't there a line in a Bob Dylan song that said "Money doesn't talk, it swears", or somesuch.

Yes. It is in "It's alright Ma, I'm only bleeding"

up
0 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

out a fiver, people listen to me"..."Money Talks" by The Kinks

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Mark from Queens's picture

But maybe that's just me.

I've always liked them a lot but never really delved headlong in, having not yet even been born when they set the pop world on fire with arguably the first punk rock song ever, "You Really Got Me," only to follow it up with the even-raunchier "All Day And All of the Night." Still blows my mind that these came out in 1964. One of the big bands of my day, Van Halen, however, seemed to always be covering the Kinks (that was their first hit too, and later on they did "Where Have All The Good Times Gone).

To me then, they seemed always to be sandwiched between the titans of the day, the Beatles/Stones/Who and like the true everyman lunchpail guys they were just kept churning out hit after hit after hit while the Big 3 got all the accolades. Then it was on to Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and the prog rock of Yes/Pink Floyd/Jethro Tull for me, while the Kinks had another phase of great stuff that I kept hearing on the radio, such as Celluloid Heroes and Lola, etc. But for some reason not until I was at the beginning of my teens and Low Budget seemed to be all over the radio, did I go out an buy an album.

Suffice to say, the Kinks these days are a go-to for me, satisfied by a couple of 2cd retrospective collections that are really good. Will have to look for Money Talks now...

up
0 users have voted.

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

English invasion, being working class themselves. Ray Davies had a gift for putting working people's concerns and troubles into lyrics - often witty - behind a solid rock band. Arthur is an amazing document as well as great music(to my ears anyway). Preservation, Part 1 & 2, is about capitalism interfacing at the local level to the detriment of the working class. It made good theater with Ray as Mr. Flash, and Dave as one of the wideboy spivs. Money talks is from Preservation I believe.

Dave could write also and Walking On A Thin Line was very popular in concert.

The Kinks 45 of Celluloid Heroes had the shortened radio version on the A Side and the full length version on the B Side.

I agree The Kinks didn't get the press and the money the Beatles and Rolling Stones got but I sure listen to The Kinks a lot more than the Stones or the Beatles.

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

blazinAZ's picture

Hope to see your participation a lot more now that you've broken the ice!

ps -- I love your bird avatar!

up
0 users have voted.

There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.
--Amiri Baraka

Alligator Ed's picture

Hope many of our members delurk and contribute in print. Thanks for the input.

up
0 users have voted.
WaterLily's picture

The eminent domain abuse is everywhere. Despite ample protesting and action (I believe Bill McKibben was involved as well), Vermont Gas has successfully used it against nine landowners in my state in order to force through its latest pipeline. Most recently, they used it to seize a parcel it needed in a privately donated public park. (Article here).

I've watched this whole thing unfold during the past few years and it disgusts me. There truly is nothing we private citizens can do to stop this kind of abuse. Worse, we sometimes even vote for it. (This ballot question passed in November).

up
0 users have voted.

the only RWer in the majority. Stephens, Breyer, Ginsberg were among the majority. The RW minority said this reverse Robin Hood would become the norm and they were correct. It was a horrible decision as you point out(regardless whether what I posted was right or wrong) and the USA is a worse place for it. Much worse.

I think it was on the PEER web site where I read of the COE misuse of the "short-hop" exception to approve the whole stinking pipeline.

Thanks for your post

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

Citizen Of Earth's picture

land by eminent domain for private company profits. It's time to bury the term "liberal". It no longer has meaning.

up
0 users have voted.

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

and Breyer. Stevens wrote the decision. I was wrong about Scalia - he issued a warning about the decision obliterating the distinction between public and private.

I should have looked it up before writing...it was the doing of the so-called liberals and moderates.

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

boriscleto's picture

He proposed a ballot measure to seize Souter's farm so he could build a hotel called the Lost Liberty Inn. Residents of the town turned it down 1,167 to 493. Souter has since sold that farm house saying that it wasn't structurally sound enough to support the weight of his books and that he wanted to live on a single level...

up
0 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Deja's picture

Thanks for the topic related info, which taught me something.

OT: Phenomenal shots in your sig link! The patience you must have. Not sure what I like best, the larger trees/water nature shots, or the up close individuals. Pandas (love), dragonflies (love), birds of all types, and more (I can relate to the primate with the saggy neck lol). Excellent work!

up
0 users have voted.
Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

That was the exact outcome that his decision made possible to happen to any other American citizen. I applauded the "wing nuts" for attempting to show in concrete terms what the decision was all about.

You know, when I first read about Kelo, I made the automatic assumption that it was the conservative side of the court going to bat for big money developers over the little guy. I can't describe the discombobulation I felt on discovering it was the liberal side of the court. I couldn't believe how they got it so wrong.

up
0 users have voted.

" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

Phoebe Loosinhouse's picture

under a social engineering rubric that if an altered use of the property resulted in an increased tax base or jobs, that could be construed as a public good and higher purpose. That reasoning is what led Sandra Day O'Connor to muse about every Motel Six now being in the target sights of any Ritz-Carlton that had designs on their location, and in reality, she wasn't off in that assessment. Kelo needs to be overturned - it destroyed accepted case law and history as well as the clear intent of the framers of the Constitution concerning property rights vs the state apart from legitimate reasons for eminent domain as had previously existed. Prior to Kelo, a person had the right to refuse to sell to another private party who wanted their land for personal gain or profit or any reason if they chose to. Not anymore. The government can now intervene and use ED to on the behalf of that private party. Inadequate compensation is a form of seizure. Even adequate compensation is still seizure if forced on an unwilling participant under duress. And make no mistake, some real hardball is played in eminent domain. I read recently of eminent domain traffic apparatchiks retracting and punitively lowering an offer when it was refused by a property owner.

The one little bit of sunlight in the Kelo decision was that the SCOTUS said that a state could make their state eminent domain laws as tight or rigid as they chose, the decision simply said that this was no longer a right accorded Federal protections. Small comfort. A state is probably IMO even more prone to blandishments and influences of big fish in these smaller ponds. Some states have gone ahead and created state law that reflects the old standards, but any new legislature could change them at any time. The only real protection is having the state version of eminent domain enshrined in the State Constitution, previously unnecessary as it was a federal Constitutional protection. Good job Supreme Court!

As just one example, under Kelo, if your state has not written protections into state law, if you own property in an older waterfront community that some condo developer wanted to create luxury condominiums on, you don't really have any protections from your local authorities dancing to the developers tune. 60 Minutes had a story a long time ago about some town in I think Ohio that attempted to condemn for new development a whole bunch of small older picturesque homes without central air-conditioning as "blighted" due to their desirable location which they wanted to gentrify and upscale. The resulting outrage stopped this outrage, but it could have happened if the community had not organized effective pushback.

I recall an effort in my area for a large retail corporation who wanted the property of an adjacent business owner to create a delivery access road but the owner wasn't having it as it impacted his own property and business in a negative way and the money being offered was not adequate compensation for the loss he would suffer. Instead of paying him a more reasonable price, the retail outlet attempted to get the local town authorities to use eminent domain on their behalf which was reported and caused quite an outcry among the locals which squelched the effort.

We are all Motel Six!

up
0 users have voted.

" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "

Citizen Of Earth's picture

the real estate developer tycoon, reversing the eminent domain theft law. Cause you know, he promised to Make America Great Again. Everything is gonna be Terrific, believe me. Hahahaha.

up
0 users have voted.

Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.

dystopian's picture

Thank you all for the kind comments and additional info. I want to apologize for crossing a wire in some neurons regarding which side of the court was where on the SCOTUS Em.Dom. decision. Thank you very much for the corrections.

up
0 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

Alligator Ed's picture

remember, no single party can take credit for the master clusterfuck of our progressively diminishing number of "liberties". We have so-called SCOTUS liberals approving eminent domain for private enrichment in Kelo vs CT and conservatives in Citizens United versus FEC for the legalization of the legalized bribes to politicians.

up
0 users have voted.