It’s fascinating to watch respective witnesses, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Councilman getting 6 minutes and STEM-teacher/mom getting abruptly cut-off after 6 minutes, in their opening statements to House Energy & Commerce Committee (Subcmte. On Energy) Hearing Wednesday this week (slide forward video to 2:53:50 run to 3:05:50)
No, the pipeline is not finished, the water protectors are not beaten. Yes, the Practical fight and Prayerful fight at Standing rock continues in full vigor. In the video (5:03:00 thru 5:13:39) you can see how for-real the fight is in the terse 10 minutes of exchanges between Congressman Markwayne Mullin [R-OK-2], the Witness Councilman and Congressman Raul Ruiz [D-CA-36].
Energy Transfer Partners building Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) under a deep water mile and a quarter wide Lake Oahe (reservoir) on the Missouri River is opposed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) in part because DAPL could have crossed just 200-300 yards of the shallow river about 10 miles upstream from twin cities Mandan-Bismark instead of crossing 2,200 yards of deep water barely a half mile from the present SRST national border. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 reset the eastern boundary for Očhéthi Šakówiŋ from the west bank to the east bank of the Missouri River and then in 1889 the smaller current “reservation” was forced onto the people who never had and still have not ceded the vastly larger 1858 treaty land that included all drainage between Heart River and the Cannonball.
Chad Harrison of SRST was speaking for the respect due a Native Nation and Kim Kann was speaking for the respect due local small landowners with ordinary family concerns respectively opposing a multi-billion dollar oil and gas pipelines running amok through the countryside in N.Dakota and Pennsylvania.
Calling their presentations as if a horserace of damning substantive points, you’d have to say it was a nearly dead-heat photo-finish! Both the pipelines are disasters waiting to happen for no compelling and honest reason.
But when Ms. Kann got the hook from the obviously biased “referee” (Subcmte. Chair Fred Upton [R-MI-6]) it was as she recited verbatim the GOP 2016 Campaign Platform document explaining how fraudulent its promise was to conservative Lancaster County citizens of her community. Her microphone got yanked when she notified all present of pledged civil disobedience on tap for this weekend opposing Oklahoma-based Williams Partners building the –Central Penn South– running the western edge of Lancaster County along the Susquehanna River (map here).
As Chad & Kim went along, I felt ever more strongly that Chad and Kim were raising many same and similar commonsense objections to these oil and gas pipelines.
It was a good hearing. I hope you’ll watch. Trump, Energy Transfer Partners and Williams Partners must stop running over ordinary people Chad and Kim represented well.
Resources for this diary:
2016-09-01 Company behind Dakota Access Pipeline lied about exporting oil – YouTube
2016-03-10 A Perspective on Natural Gas Markets by Dr Dennis Witmer, Veteran Energy Analyst - YouTube
2017-02-15 Testimony of Chad Harrison, Councilman At-Large Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
2016-02-15 (forward video to 2:53:50 run to 3:05:50) Hrng HSE Energy & Commerce on “Modernizing Energy and Electricity Delivery Systems: Challenges and Opportunities to Promote Infrastructure Improvement and Expansion,” Subcommittee on Energy (February 15, 2017) | Democrats, Energy and Commerce Committee - Chad Harrison Councilman at Large SRST Testimony and Kim Kann, Citizen. Committee Questions follow opening statements by all witnesses ( goto 3:27:30 )
2016-12-30 FERC Staff Issues the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Sunrise Project The final EIS addresses the potential environmental effects of the construction and operation of about 199.4 miles of pipeline composed of the following facilities: