Like most Americans, I was shocked when I saw President Obama fail to condemn protesters who wouldn’t accept the election results. “I would not advise people who feel strongly … to be silent,” he said while visiting Germany in November, taking no action to stop protests like those that caused $1 million in damages in Portland, Ore.
Apparently, the impending peaceful transition of presidential power didn’t merit a call for marchers to return to their homes.
Those protesting the peaceful election results were not the only ones who heard the president. So too did those opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
The pipeline was approved only after years of federally-mandated decision-making under the National Environmental Policy Act, other federal and state laws, and courtroom challenges, as Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., has described. The rule of law was not good enough for out-of-staters who traveled to North Dakota to stop the pipeline. Instead of standing for the rule of law, the Obama administration aided the protesters by delaying completion of the pipeline.
As more protesters came to North Dakota, it was to the detriment of local law enforcement, residents and rural ranchers. Fences were torn down and fields trespassed upon and trampled. Scores of valuable livestock went missing, were slaughtered illegally for food, or stampeded, causing further loss of livestock. Locals who called the nearby Army Corps of Engineers office were put on hold — officials there were awaiting word from Washington, D.C.
Last weekend, the word came down: The Army Corps of Engineers is putting the $1.6 billion, 1,100-mile project (out of 2.5 million miles of oil and gas pipelines across the country) on hold with 20 miles of pipeline left to go. As it turns out, Obama’s failure to condemn the protesters made the difference: Make enough noise, attract enough media attention, and draw enough support from celebrities and the rule of law does not matter.
While the lawlessness that stopped the pipeline has drawn the nation’s attention, few know that the same lawlessness threatens to kill the dreams of an elderly Louisiana man represented by my orgnization, the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
Like the pipeline, his plans to explore the federal energy lease he was issued in Montana were studied carefully before he received the permit necessary to drill in hopes of discovering what he believes to be a huge natural gas reservoir. His application for a permit to drill was studied for 10 years and subjected to four separate reviews under NEPA and four different National Historic Preservation Act studies, all with the involvement of scores of federal bureaucrats and their lawyers.
That was not enough for President Clinton, whose officials indefinitely suspended the lease. Nor was it enough for environmental extremists, who demand that all federal energy remain in the ground. Finally, nor was it enough for Obama and his administration.
When we went to federal court with our client, Sidney Longwell, we demanded that the federal government allow him to drill his well. Instead, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said a Native American tribe now objects to energy leases that they wholeheartedly supported when they were issued and cancelled his lease. In recent court filings, her lawyers admit that Congress did not grant her the right to cancel the lease. They say her powers are “implicit,” just like the powers that Obama so often says he has.
Writing Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, Cramer argues, “The [North Dakota] standoff isn’t about tribal rights or water, but a White House that ignores the rule of law.” As it is in North Dakota, so it is in Montana.
In the words of the musical “1776,” the situation leaves Longwell wondering, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”
William Perry Pendley is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, has argued cases before the Supreme Court and worked in the Department of the Interior during the Reagan administration. He is the author of “Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today.” Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
