Repercussions of Dakota Access Pipeline Delay

[thackney]

Repercussions of Dakota Access Pipeline Delay
http://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2016/10/17/repercussions_of_dakota_access_delay_110085.html
October 17, 2016

The repercussions of the Obama administration’s decision to continue delaying the more than half-completed Dakota Access pipeline would extend well beyond billions in private investment dollars, tens of thousands of lost jobs, and hundreds of millions in denied annual tax revenues.  At stake is the fragile nexus between state and federal regulation of the private development they govern.  If Dakota Access is denied at this late stage – after having met and exceeded all applicable rules and regulations, and, after having invested huge sums of capital – it would signal an end of the rule of law under this administration.

Private companies do not spend large amounts of time and money frivolously.  They identify a need, conceive a solution, and then establish a goal for attaining it.  They study.  They plan.  They commit to years of regulatory hearings, testimony, proceedings, and detailed reports by the company and by federal, state and local officials.  Only after all those steps have been taken do the private companies commit, and with years to go before ultimate clearances are granted, do they commit.

For Dakota Access, that commitment revolves around a 1,172-mile pipeline that will transport domestically-produced crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to major refining markets throughout the country.  It’s a commitment that, at today’s volume, will transport half of the total production coming from the Bakken, and will result in a river of royalties to private landowners, the state, and to many Native Americans who hold oil and gas leases or production on reservation land.

Routed on private property for all but 1,094-feet of federal land, Dakota Access will employ state-of-the art technology, and prove vastly safer and more environmentally sound than other modes of transport such as rail or truck.  It will be more efficient and more cost-effective.  It will also directly infuse the economies of North Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota – the four states the pipeline will traverse – with more energy-wealth, jobs, and tax revenue.  In fact, it already has....

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Unforgivable, blatant lawlessness.

America in decline unless we arrest this disregard for the Law.

Reminds me of the type of frivolous behavior in which a third world country engages.

[Fishrrman]

I sailed wrote:
"Unforgivable, blatant lawlessness.
America in decline unless we arrest this disregard for the Law.
Reminds me of the type of frivolous behavior in which a third world country engages."

Everything you said is true.

But think it's bad now?
Wait until hillary gets into power.
You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
The obama administration is inept, but she (and those who work for her) will be ruthless.

Hmmm.... jes wonderin'...
Have you given any thought at what's required to keep hillary from obtaining that power?
Who ya votin' for this November?

[Smokin Joe]

Yep. That crap is wearing thin. Cattle have 'gone missing' or been found killed or mutilated (partly butchered) in the area of the protest, over a million dollars in equipment damage, and jackasses running rampant out there.

All of this construction has been permitted, the right of way is along a right of way for an existing pipeline and a high tension power line, and had been surveyed for cultural material already. No burials, no archaeological sites, were found in the new surveys either, and it isn't tribal land.
Time for the fedgov to tell those jackasses to go home, and get out of the way and let the line be completed.

Figure right now, the protesters are costing everyone from oil companies to royalty holders to State Government their respective shares of roughly $5 per barrel of production that could be going through that line--of $2,350,000.00 a day, every day completion is delayed. Any train derailments which happen between now and then are on the protesters.
 
Not to mention the sabotage attempts, "protesters" making the jump from protester to terrorist by closing random pipeline valves on operating pipelines--actions which could have disastrous results.
 
The effect of cheaper transport of crude oil will be like oil going up $5/bbl for deciding what wells to drill and when to complete those wells, which could mean jobs and more revenue for the State and communities hit hard by the downturn in oil activity.

But people form Hollywood don't give a damn about the locals, they just want their ass in the news. And for environmentalists and the Tribe, it's just an old fashioned hold-up in more ways than one.

[mountaineer]

The Facts About the Dakota Access Pipeline That Protesters Don’t Want You to Know
Rep. Kevin Cramer /  November 17, 2016
Daily Signal

For more than three months, thousands of protesters, most of them from out of state, have illegally camped on federal land in Morton County, North Dakota, to oppose the construction of a legally permitted oil pipeline project that is 85 percent complete.

The celebrities, political activists, and anti-oil extremists who are blocking the pipeline’s progress are doing so based on highly charged emotions rather than actual facts on the ground.

This 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline will deliver as many as 570,000 barrels of oil a day from northwestern North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to connect to existing pipelines in Illinois. It will do this job far more safely than the current method of transporting it by 750 rail cars a day.

The protesters say they object to the pipeline’s being close to the water intake of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, this should be of no concern as it will sit approximately 92 feet below the riverbed, with increased pipe thickness and control valves at both ends of the crossing to reduce the risk of an incident, which is already low.

Just like the companies that run the 10 other fossil-fuel pipelines crossing the Missouri River upstream of Standing Rock, Energy Transfer Partners—the primary funder of this pipeline—is taking all necessary precautions to ensure that the pipeline does not leak.

But even if there were a risk, Standing Rock will soon have a new water intake that is nearing completion much further downstream near Mobridge, South Dakota.

From the outset of this process, Standing Rock Sioux leaders have refused to sit down and meet with either the Army Corps of Engineers or the pipeline company.

The Army Corps consulted with 55 Native American tribes at least 389 times, after which they proposed 140 variations of the route to avoid culturally sensitive areas in North Dakota. The logical time for Standing Rock tribal leaders to share their concerns would have been at these meetings, not now when construction is already near completion.

The original pipeline was always planned for south of Bismarck, despite false claims that it was originally planned for north of Bismarck and later moved, thus creating a greater environmental danger to the Standing Rock Sioux.

The real reasons for not pursuing the northern route were that the pipeline would have affected an additional 165 acres of land, 48 extra miles of previously undisturbed field areas, and an additional 33 waterbodies.

It would also have crossed zones marked by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration as “high consequence” areas, and would have been 11 miles longer than the preferred and current route.

North Dakotans have respected the rights of these individuals to protest the pipeline, but they have gone beyond civil protesting.

Though these protesters claim to be gathered for peaceful prayer and meditation, law enforcement has been forced to arrest more than 400 in response to several unlawful incidents, including trespassing on and damaging private land, chaining themselves to equipment, burning tires and fields, damaging cars and a bridge, harassing residents of nearby farms and ranches, and killing and butchering livestock. There was even at least one reported incident where gun shots were fired at police.

The recent vandalization of graves in a Bismarck cemetery and the unconscionable graffiti marking on the North Dakota column at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., are examples of how the protesters’ actions do not match their claims of peaceful demonstration.

Equally disturbing is the meddling by the Obama administration in trying to block this legally permitted project through executive policymaking. This has encouraged more civil disobedience, threatened the safety of local residents, and placed an onerous financial burden on local law enforcement—with no offer of federal reimbursement for these increasing costs.

All that remains for the pipeline project to be completed is for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a final easement to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. With no legal reason remaining to not issue it, I am confident the Trump administration will do what’s right if it’s not settled before President Donald Trump takes office.

The simple fact is that our nation will continue to produce and consume oil, and pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport it. Legally permitted infrastructure projects must be allowed to proceed without threat of improper governmental meddling.

The rule of law matters. We cannot allow lawless mobs to obstruct projects that have met all legal requirements to proceed.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I sailed wrote:
"Unforgivable, blatant lawlessness.
America in decline unless we arrest this disregard for the Law.
Reminds me of the type of frivolous behavior in which a third world country engages."

Everything you said is true.

But think it's bad now?
Wait until hillary gets into power.
You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
The obama administration is inept, but she (and those who work for her) will be ruthless.

Hmmm.... jes wonderin'...
Have you given any thought at what's required to keep hillary from obtaining that power?
Who ya votin' for this November?

@Fishrrman

Am still waiting and will for a long, long time.........

[Smokin Joe]

https://www.gofundme.com/stand4standingrock $107K

https://www.gofundme.com/immediate-sacred-stone-fund $8.5K

https://www.gofundme.com/bunk-bus-for-standing-rock-2vd8n8s $26K

https://www.gofundme.com/veterans-for-standing-rock-nodapl $94K
(That one really gets me--do they have any idea how many veterans work/worked/could go back to work in the oil industry in ND? Apparently not.)

https://www.gofundme.com/amodernghost $23.5K
for a few. Of the 'funds' I looked at, for everything from travel expenses to accupuncture to canned goods to yurts and a bus, most averaged about 1K, and ranged upward from a low of $70 (the only one in just two figures) to, more commonly several hundred to a few thousand dollars in donations so far.

Anyway, if you go to the gofundme.com site and enter "Standing Rock" there are at least 500 gofundme campaigns going on, and local rumor has it that over 2 million dollars has been raised by various means. This tribe has two Casino/resort operations (Prairie Knights Casino and Resort, and the Grand River Casino and Resort), but no oil. I guess they found a better way to raise money.

Considering that the information being propagated about the project is often misleading:

The pipeline is NOT going through Tribal Land.
The pipeline is not disturbing burial grounds.
The pipeline is supposed to go more than 80 feet below the bottom of the river in a hole horizontally drilled for that purpose.
This is the most technologically advanced pipeline yet, and will have shutoffs on either side of the water, just so that in the event the pipeline was to be damaged somehow, any possible damage would be minimized.

"Save the water" is a misleading slogan, too, from the aspect that the whole idea is to keep the oil out of the water. Tribal water supplies will be pulled from an intake near Mowbridge,

It is NOT in the interest of a pipeline company (effectively, a transport company) to fail to get the goods to their destination. Although far less likely, the effect of a leak is much the same as wrecking the truck, derailing the train, crashing the plane carrying cargo. Loss of cargo is not only bad for business, but an expense, and in the case of transporting oil, the expense of cleaning up and environmental remediation falls on the transport company, too (along with fines).

I wonder if a 'go fund me fund' with a ten million dollar goal was started to offset the costs of law enforcement at the protest site were started, how it would work out?

Perhaps a fund to offset the loss of income by thousands of oil workers whose industry could use the shot in the arm of cheaper, safer transport of crude oil, being held up at the rate of nearly half a million barrels of oil a day? (470,000 bopd was the proposed operating volume, capacity is about 100,000 bopd more.)

Maybe one to replace the additional taxes landowners will end up paying and royalty money that land and mineral owners won't get ($5 per barrel in increased costs, at 20% is a dollar a barrel royalty owners won't get, and fifty five cents a barrel the State won't get in extraction taxes used in part to offset local property taxes by funding schools).

For those who think mob 'just-us' is maybe a good idea, think again. This is "democracy" at work where people who have been misled lend their support to other people who are causing injury, not just in lost jobs and revenue, but damaging and destroying private property, butchering and killing livestock (called 'rustling' in these parts, and once a hanging offense), burning cars on a bridge and damaging what for residents of the area is critical infrastructure, and camping on Corps of Engineers land--something we can't use to go swimming for the day, much less camp out on. Keep in mind that 90% of these people protesting have no ties to the area except adding another anti-American anti-industry anti-oil protest to their resume.

BTW, if you go to the gofundme site and see the tipis in the snow with the trees in the background, well, that wasn't a picture from the protest area. We have neither had much snow this year, nor are there any birch trees in the area (or much of any trees, for that matter).
 

[17 Oaks]

Ask ANY Indian and they will point and mutter something as they wave there hand and and say those are scared burial grounds.  Ask where zactly and you only another wave of the hand and where the sun sets/rises...


But WAIT there is a way to mitigate this as have most states and businesses have learned over the years in states that have Reservations and Indians.  Just pull out the wallet start spreading $100 bills on Chief Noseeum's table.  In this case what the will ask for is a % of the barrels of oil flowing thru the pipeline.  They will start out asking big bucks per bbl but will nego down.


Its a racket and a shake down and its why they stay on the Res.


I dated a indian for about 3 years or so, her father was on the Tribal Council.  And the things I learned wow.  She semi broke away, went to school and got a medical degree, but stayed close enough to reap the rewards.  She was going to college when I was seeing her and she lived well, VERY well.  New Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer Edition every year, lux apt, all books, fees everything paid for and she was knocking down about $25k walking around money (back in the early 80's).  Her tribe was set, they had mega bucks coming in from gambling and other things.  The Res was partly in the US and Canada and both govts were paying BIG.  But best of all she paid no taxes on anything as her address was on the Res so her income was tax free...

[Smokin Joe]

Ask ANY Indian and they will point and mutter something as they wave there hand and and say those are scared burial grounds.  Ask where zactly and you only another wave of the hand and where the sun sets/rises...


But WAIT there is a way to mitigate this as have most states and businesses have learned over the years in states that have Reservations and Indians.  Just pull out the wallet start spreading $100 bills on Chief Noseeum's table.  In this case what the will ask for is a % of the barrels of oil flowing thru the pipeline.  They will start out asking big bucks per bbl but will nego down.


Its a racket and a shake down and its why they stay on the Res.


I dated a indian for about 3 years or so, her father was on the Tribal Council.  And the things I learned wow.  She semi broke away, went to school and got a medical degree, but stayed close enough to reap the rewards.  She was going to college when I was seeing her and she lived well, VERY well.  New Ford Bronco Eddie Bauer Edition every year, lux apt, all books, fees everything paid for and she was knocking down about $25k walking around money (back in the early 80's).  Her tribe was set, they had mega bucks coming in from gambling and other things.  The Res was partly in the US and Canada and both govts were paying BIG.  But best of all she paid no taxes on anything as her address was on the Res so her income was tax free...

...And that is why she will live on the Res when she is done with school.

Frankly, I think this whole thing started as a revenue generating venture and got out of hand. My bet is that when the pipeline company said 'You don't have any authority over private land, the permits are done, everything approved, and the government has signed off on it, so pound sand', the tribe went for big bucks by raising a flap. Only that got into the media and out of hand, and instead of a cute little 'put-a-dollar-in-the kitty' they now had a tiger by the tail, with Enviros and New-Agers and 'justice warriors' of all sorts from all over rallying around their 'cause'.

Now, they are stuck, and before all this is over, it will be hopefully exposed as a holdup, not just in construction, if you get my drift.

In order to keep the fiction going, they have to keep up the distortions and lies, or they will have exposed the whole racket for what it is. I'm surprised (well not) that the community organizer in chief hasn't sent the DOJ after the 500+ gofundmes to see how many are fraud, where the money went, etc.

But then, he hates oil anyway, and has been after every aspect of the industry in the past eight years, from drilling to fraccing to flaring gas to trains that derail and burn to asserting earthquakes come from fraccing and disposal wells (although there may be some attributable to the latter), and even released methane--lower than biological sources (cow farts and swampland) and declining, because that's Natural Gas and worth money.

As far as Tribal deals go, some were far better than others. The grazing lease money on my wife's share of trust land is up to five dollars after ten years, no big annual checks, barely Indian Health, and the paperwork is so labyrinthine we just said the hell with it.
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (Three Affiliated Tribes) have oil under their land, by contrast. The Tribes get a cut of that, extract money in the form of commercial vehicle permits and licenses, and get to have a tribal member on every crew drawing pay with everyone else, whether or not they are a good worker. Still, they aren't holding up development, they are cashing in on it, and it proceeds.

The Standing Rock Tribe is attempting to exert influence beyond their reservation boundaries (where there is no oil), much as the Forest Service or Parks Service exert influence over private land with 'buffer zones', only they don't have the legal authority to do so.
With the ecowhacko and militant elements which have joined them and the exposure of claims of sacred sites as mostly, if not entirely, bogus, they have lost what moral high ground they may have had. You can't just claim it is sacred land because, well, all land is sacred.

Now they are just costing the State of North Dakota and everyone else in it money. The more who realize that, the more I hope it costs them good will. As I have posted previously, they have two casinos, Prairie Knights Casino and Resort and Grand River Casino and Resort. I will never set foot in either one. I would hope other North Dakotans will join me in that.