April 1, 2020: Last week, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe secured a major victory in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline when a federal district court ruled the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to adequately evaluate the risks of oil spills from the pipeline. The court ordered the Corps to prepare a full environmental impact statement, and is considering whether to shut down the pipeline until the EIS is complete. This decision is the culmination of years of indigenous-led resistance against DAPL and the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure more broadly.
The Environmental Law Program has also been opposing DAPL since 2016. Most recently, ELP has been fighting DAPL's efforts to double the pipeline's capacity to 1.1 million barrels per day, which would drastically increase the severity of any oil spill and would cause additional climate pollution. Because no federal approval is required for such an expansion, DAPL quietly applied for approval to build additional pump stations with state regulators in Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota, and North Dakota, and attempted to speed those dockets through without any meaningful public process.
Sierra Club has engaged in each of those processes, including an intervention in the Illinois Commerce Commission docket alongside Save Our Illinois Land. The ICC recently held its evidentiary hearing. However, following last week's court decision, the Club has moved to stay the DAPL expansion proceedings and/or to re-open the evidentiary phase of the proceedings in light of recent oil price collapse. In response, the Commission has paused the existing schedule and ordered additional briefing on the Club's motion.