WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th September, 2018) Several Native American tribes have joined together to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for alleged violations in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process, the Native American Rights Fund said in a press release.
"The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community and Gros Ventre Tribes in coordination with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, on September 10, 2018, sued the Trump Administration in the US District Court for the District of Montana, Great Falls Division, for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process," the release said on Monday.
The tribes argue that the US Federal government's environmental assessment violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the release said.
Throughout the permitting process, there was no analysis of trust obligations, treaty rights, potential impact on hunting and fishing rights, potential impacts on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe's unique water system, potential impact of spills on tribal citizens, and no analysis of the potential impact on cultural sites in the path of the pipeline, the release said. These oversights are violations of the NEPA and the NHPA, it added.
Last month, a federal court in Montana ruled that TransCanada Corp, the developer of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, must conduct an additional environmental review of the pipeline's new route
In July, US State Department said in a draft assessment that the company's Mainland Alternative Route would not have a significant impact on the environment in the United States including with respect to water, land and wildlife.
Last March, the State Department issued a permit for TransCanada to construct the $8 billion Keystone XL pipeline immediately after US President Donald Trump approved the pipeline deal. The Keystone XL pipeline is the last section of the entire Keystone project that remains to be constructed. Former President Barack Obama had previously blocked the project in 2015.
The proposed Keystone XL 1,179-mile pipeline would carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Canadian province of Alberta to the US state of Nebraska and down to oil refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Various environmental groups and Native American tribes have protested against the project, which traverses sacred tribal lands and could pollute local waters.
