Montana Free Press (https://montanafreepress.org/tag/keystone-xl/)
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a Montana federal judge’s injunction blocking construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline on the basis that new executive orders from the Trump administration made the injunction moot.
Two bills are aimed at protecting drinking water, indigenous cultural sites, and the environment, but opponents say the legislation would end any hope of building the Keystone XL pipeline.
A federal judge ruled the U.S. government did not adequately consider climate change and other environmental impacts of the massive transnational pipeline.
Documents reveal state and federal agencies are training law enforcement agencies to surveil anti-Keystone XL pipeline activists’ social media, and how to arrest protesters en masse.
Civil liberties groups say a government report conflated indigenous protesters with violent “environmental rights extremists,” and revealed anti-Keystone XL pipeline protesters’ free speech rights were being chilled by surveillance.
The Keystone XL pipeline oil pipeline is slated to cross the Missouri River near the edge of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes say the pipeline is a threat to their drinking water and way of life.
A federal judge in Great Falls on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Department of State to update its environmental assessment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to reflect changes in the pipeline’s route through Nebraska. District Judge Brian Morris’ 13-page partial order is a temporary win for environmental and indigenous rights groups who sued the federal government under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.
Fort Peck Indian Reservation tribal chairman Floyd Azure said he plans to urge the tribes’ executive board to join a lawsuit that accuses the federal government of failing to address the threat a foreign-owned oil pipeline poses to the tribes’ drinking water.