A new blog post published by the Say Anything Blog reveals the underlying motives of the environmental law firm representing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in a new lawsuit filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over its approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Rob Port, founder and editor of the popular North Dakota-based political blog, says Earthjustice has no interest in ensuring safe, responsible infrastructure development, but rather seeks to shut down all oil and gas projects.
“…Earthjustice isn’t out to promote safe, responsible oil and gas development, goals all reasonable people share. They don’t want a safe pipeline, per se. Rather, they’re out to choke oil and gas development to death by obstructing energy infrastructure with legal maneuvering.”
Port goes on to emphasize that the Standing Rock has every right to challenge the approval of the pipeline, but cautions that working with Earthjustice challenges the legitimacy of their concerns.
“If the tribe wants to scrutinize in court the approval of this pipeline, which will be built in a place where it could have significant impacts on their community, that’s their right.
But by partnering with Earthjustice the tribe is sending the wrong message to the public. While we can, and should, take seriously the tribe’s interest in a safe and lawfully-approved pipeline project, that priority is going to get lost in Earthjustice’s larger objective which is to kill oil and gas development.
The Standing Rock tribal leadership is doing their people a real disservice by allowing their legal standing to be co-opted by a group with unserious and politically extreme objectives.”
Read the entire post on the SayAnythingBlog.com.