President Barack Obama announced the Army Corps of Engineers are reexamining the Dakota Access Pipeline, which is being built near the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s reservation in Cannonball, North Dakota and considering a plan to reroute it instead.
“We’re monitoring this closely,” Obama said during an interview with Now This on Tuesday. “My view is that there is a way for us to accommodate sacred lands of Native Americans. And I think that right now the Army Corps is examining whether there are ways to reroute this pipeline.”
EXCLUSIVE: @POTUS on Dakota Access Pipeline protests: “There’s an obligation for authorities to show restraint” pic.twitter.com/OfITagV1WG
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“We’re going to let it play out for several more weeks and determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to the traditions of First Americans,” Obama said.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s chairman, Dave Archambault II, released a statement in response to Obama’s announcement saying, “While the Army Corps of Engineers is examining this issue we call on the Administration and the Corps to issue an immediate ‘stop work order’ on the Dakota Access Pipeline. And given the flawed process that has put our drinking water in jeopardy, we also urge the Administration to call for a full environmental impact study.”
“The nation and the world are watching. The injustices done to Native people in North Dakota and throughout the country must be addressed,” Archambault said. “We believe President Obama and his administration will do the right thing.”
The National Sheriff’s Association reacted to Obama’s remarks Wednesday with Executive Director Jonathan Thompson saying, “Law enforcement is in the middle of a powder keg in Morton County, N.D., and last night President Obama said: ‘We’re going to let it play out for several more weeks.'”
Thompson continued, “Law enforcement officers are protecting private property and the right to protest in Morton County. There have been 415 arrests in connection with the riots. Just 8 percent of are from North Dakota, while the other 92 percent are from 43 other states stretching from Vermont to Florida to California. This includes militant agitators with long histories of violence, including domestic assault, child abuse and burglary.”
“Protesters have allegedly fired a weapon and thrown Molotov Cocktails at law enforcement and President Obama is “going to let it play out for several more weeks. Mr. President, this is not a game. As we saw in Iowa this morning, where two police officers were ambushed and murdered, law enforcement is real life and, all too often, real death.”
“Sheriffs, Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and John Hoeven, Rep. Kevin Cramer, Gov. Jack Dalrymple and Lt. Gov. Drew Wrigley have repeatedly called for assistance from the federal government,” he added. “Letting it play out, as the President has recommended, puts precious lives – protesters, workers, tribal members, ranchers, farmers and law enforcement – in danger. Unless the President can provide us with assistance and support, the President should be held partially responsible for the fear, terror, and damage caused by violent, militant out-of-state agitators.”
Rerouting the pipeline at this point, experts say, would by costly for the Texas based energy company behind the pipeline.
“You have seen this kind of slow train wreck coming for a long time. One would think that the option that would save face for all the parties would be to reroute the pipeline,” Tyler Priest, a professor at the University of Iowa who served as a senior policy analyst for the President’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, told ABC News.
“For Dakota Access, time is money,” Priest said. “They want to get this done as fast as they can.”
“Most of it is already built, so I don’t know if it would require pulling up pipeline,” he said of a potential reroute. “If you had to arrange emergency easements at this point in time, it would cost the pipeline company a lot more.”
“The pipeline company and the main advocates for it argue that no laws have been broken and this is following all regulations and laws and permitting at the state and federal level. But clearly there is an impasse with much larger political implications,” Priest added. “In situations like this, two sides have to come to the table and broker some kind of compromise.”
The pipeline has become a cause of conflict between protesters demonstrating against the pipeline and local residents along with law enforcement. Nearby ranchers and farmers have reported finding their private property damaged as well as discovering livestock that has been slaughtered. Additionally, protesters have blocked access for residents to their homes and work and set fire to construction equipment.