Former PHMSA Administrator Discredits Activist-Funded Study on Dakota Access

The former head of the federal government’s top pipeline safety watchdog is challenging the findings of recent analysis of the Dakota Access Pipeline authored by pay-for-play consultant Richard Kuprewicz and funded by Earthjustice.

Brigham McCown, a former head of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and current advisor to the MAIN Coalition, refuted many of Kuprewicz’s assumptions and questions the overall manner in which the analysis was conducted.

“My concerns with Mr. Kuprewicz’s report include a lack of understanding and respect for accepted methodology, inferring that an absence of risk is demonstrative of risk, and the inability to accept the importance of the safe transportation of America’s energy,” McCown wrote. “The overall Kuprewicz report runs directly counter to best practices, does not keep with accepted norms, and should not be relied upon when discussing the Dakota Access Pipeline Project.”

McCown proceeds to detail and correct the myriad of errors and false assumptions that Kuprewicz made, including the lack of scientifically accepted methodology, using absence of risk to indicate risk, and disregard for the necessity of petroleum-based resources.

After reviewing both the Army Corps Environmental Assessment and the Earthjustice assessment, McCown concluded that the, “Earthjustice report lacks credibility and was, from its conception, a report designed to undermine confidence in the Dakota Access Pipeline Project as opposed to a paper realistically designed to review the government’s work and decision to fully permit the project.”

Click here to read McCown’s full review.


Earthjustice Using Standing Rock Sioux Tribe To Further Own Agenda

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.