One of the tribes opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is now suing President Donald Trump in a desperate attempt to prevent the highly-contested oil project from being completed.
The lawsuit, filed at the U.S. District Court, calls on the federal government to immediately halt construction on the DAPL, a multi-state pipeline the Oceti Sakowin say could poison their drinking water and trample their ceremonial grounds.
“By forcing the US Army Corps to essentially refute its own conclusions and end its review, President Trump effectively ordered it to grant the Lake Oahe easement,” Bruce Afran, an attorney for civil liberties group RevolutionTruth, wrote in a press statement announcing the lawsuit.
“This is direct interference by the President into the authority and mission of an independent expert agency,” he said, referring to Trump’s decision to approve the much-maligned pipeline.
The Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes filed similar claims last week arguing that Trump violated federal law by denying proper review of environmental and religious rights issues surrounding the $3.8 billion line.
Judge James Boasberg, who is scheduled to hear Oceti’s case, ruled on Feb. 12 that as long as oil isn’t flowing through the pipeline, there is no imminent harm to the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes.
Oceti’s lawsuit, meanwhile, seeks damages from the president for illegally blocking the due process rights of tribal members, according to the tribe’s press statement.
The Army Corps of Engineers, at former President Barack Obama’s direction, rejected the previously approved pipeline in December, arguing the route needed further environmental reviews and assessments before construction could proceed.
Obama’s decision seemed to take the starch out of the project’s opponents. Environmentalists and activists slowly began to leave makeshift campsites set up near the pipeline’s route after the Army Corps’ order. The population dwindled from nearly 10,000 to less than 500.
Analysts disagree with the tribes’ assertion. One former pipeline regulator told The Daily Caller News Foundation in December that an oil pipeline has never been rejected after receiving approval.
“I’m not familiar with any other instance where the Corps has approved a project that’s been almost completed in reliance of those permissions / permits only to have the rug pulled out from under them,” said Brigham McCown, a former member of the Bush administration.
Trump eventually issued orders approving the pipeline, causing an increase in activity at the protest campsites, most of which are empty now after North Dakota evicted the few stragglers left in the area.
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