“This is not a peaceful protest,” said Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer Partners, reports Reuters. “If they want to stick around and continue to do what they’re doing, great, but we’re building the pipeline.”
Construction on the DAPL was halted by the federal government in September after the Standing Rock Sioux Native American tribe, average Americans, and environmentalists forced a halt to the pipeline over fears it could pollute water supplies and destroy sacred tribal sites.
On Tuesday, even as protests spread out around the country, Energy Transfer partners sought relief in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., asking the court to “end the Obama Administration’s political interference in the pipeline’s completion,” according to Digital Journal.
Energy Transfer Partners is just waiting for President-elect Trump to take office in January, knowing they will get the go-ahead to complete the project. According to NBC News, Trump has said on his campaign website that his energy plan promises to “unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.”
Trump, a climate change denier, has also pledged to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency and President Obama’s Clean Power Plan that would cut carbon emissions from our 7,500 power plants. And of course, Trump has a vested interest in seeing the pipeline completed.
Trump’s campaign financial disclosure forms reveal that his investments total between $500,000 and $1 million in Energy Transfer Partners, raising the question of a conflict of interest in whatever decision he makes as president.
