Energy Transfer LP’s 570,000-b/d Dakota Access pipeline will continue to transport crude oil pending completion of an on-going environmental review, according to a May 21, 2021, US District Court for the District of Columbia ruling. The court-ordered Army Corp of Engineers review is not expected to be complete until March 2022.
US District Judge James Boasberg said the plaintiffs, led by the Standing Rock Sioux, did not prove the irreparable harm needed to close the 570,000 b/d pipeline. "The court acknowledges the tribes' plight, as well as their understandable frustration with a political process in which they all too often seem to come up just short," Boasberg stated. "If they are to win their desired relief, however, it must come from that process, as judges may travel only as far as the law takes them and no further. Here, the law is clear, and it instructs that the court deny plaintiffs' request for an injunction."
The ruling was in line with the stated position of the administration of President Joe Biden that no information had come to light to warrant shutting the 1,170-mile pipeline (OGJ Online, May 4, 2021). The tribes had asserted that Dakota Access was operating illegally since it lacked a permit to cross underneath Lake Oahe.
Dakota Access entered service in 2017 following months of protests and has been the focus of litigation ever since.
