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In Minnesota, climate activist Jessica Reznicek self-reported to the Waseca Federal Correctional Facility Thursday to begin serving an eight-year prison sentence for damaging parts of the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. In 2016, Reznicek and fellow activist Ruby Montoya set fire to five pieces of heavy machinery being used to construct the pipeline. The two then moved up and down the pipeline’s length, destroying valves and delaying construction for weeks. Reznicek’s imprisonment came the same week the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in a major new report that the Earth could face runaway climate catastrophe unless...

Dozens of globe-trotting celebrities signed a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris calling on their administration to close down the Dakota Entry Pipeline for good – however most of the high-profile A-listers aren’t so involved about potential dangerous local weather impacts with regards to their very own luxurious transportation.

DES MOINES, Iowa – On September 19, 2019, a federal grand jury returned an Indictment charging defendants, Jessica Rae Reznicek and Ruby Katherine Montoya, with one count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility, four counts of use of fire in the commission of a felony, and four counts of malicious use of fire, announced United States Attorney Marc Krickbaum. Montoya was recently arrested in the District of Arizona and detained pending court proceedings to determine her appearance in the Southern District of Iowa. Reznicek appeared in Des Moines on October 1, 2019 and was conditionally released pending trial. Trial...

The U.S. Justice Department will begin prosecuting climate activists and protestors that perpetrate violence and destruction towards pipelines or other oil infrastructure to make their political points, Reuters said in a new report. “While we are strong advocates for the First Amendment, violence towards individuals and destruction of property are both illegal and potentially fatal,” a letter from the DOJ states. The document is a response to an official letter cosigned by 84 congressmen asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions about his department’s planned response to oil infrastructure attacks led by protestors, specifically those that shut pipelines in October 2016.

The months-long protests against the construction of a section of the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline will cost the state of North Dakota around US$39 million, after the state’s Emergency Commission voted to borrow an additional US$5 million to pay for policing services provided by as many as 11 other states—and taxpayers may likely be paying the tab. The Commission also accepted a US$10-million grant offered by the Justice Department to cover some of the law enforcement costs associated with the protests, which failed to stop the construction of the US$3.8-billion infrastructure built by Energy Transfer Partners to carry Bakken...

The issues underlying the months of protest at the Dakota Access Pipeline and the unfortunate way in which the DAPL issue was brought to a resolution has resulted in a Constitutional issue that was heartily debated and weighed in upon by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington being reduced to the level of something we might see on The Simpsons. In summary here is what occurred: a pipeline was intended to cross land that was identified as Lakota land via the Treaty of 1851. The Lakota argued that this was a violation of Article I and Article VI...

Energy Transfer Partners, the developer behind the so-called DAPL, is scheduled to start delivering oil on May 14 to Illinois, according to filings from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The oil project is expected to transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil a year across the eastern section of the country. ... The Obama administration rejected the previously approved pipeline last December ... President Donald Trump eventually issued orders approving the DAPL in January ... many demonstrators have begun diverting their attention to the equally contentious Keystone XL Pipeline, another oil pipeline Trump approved through executive order. Obama originally rejected...

Two children were burned, one of them severely, at the Dakota Access camp evacuation Wednesday after remaining activists set fire to about 20 shelters and a vehicle in what was described as a departure ceremony. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said a 17-year-old girl was airlifted to a hospital in Minneapolis, and that a seven-year-old boy was also hurt as most of the activists left the camp in compliance with a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers eviction order. Most of those remaining at the camp left peacefully, but 10 protesters were arrested after making their way onto Highway 1806 and...

BISMARCK, N.D. – Federal and state officials announced plans Wednesday to accelerate cleanup at a camp in southern North Dakota that has housed hundreds and sometimes thousands of Dakota Access pipeline opponents. Officials fear the camp near the Cannonball River will soon flood due to warm weather and rapid snowmelt. They worry trash and debris left behind by people who have left in recent weeks might pollute the Missouri River and other nearby waterways. “With the amount of people that have been out there and the amount of estimated waste and trash out there, there is a good chance it...

Looks like the Obamas aren’t done with politics. The 18-year-old daughter of recent President Obama was praised by fellow protester, Shailene Woodley, who also attended the event at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. “It was amazing to see Malia,” the actress told Democracy Now. “To witness a human being and a woman coming in to her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her, but someone who’s willing to participate in democracy because she chooses to,” Woodley said. “Because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has refused to grant a permit to Energy Transfer Partners for the construction of the hotly contested section of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that would have passed through Standing Rock Sioux lands. Hundreds of protesters who have been camping at the construction site for months now have celebrated the decision as a victory. The decision to withhold the permit was made by the Assistant Secretary of Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy, who said she made it because there were alternatives to this specific route of the Dakota Access section that could be discussed with...

CANNON BALL, ND--More than 2,000 U.S. military veterans plan to form a human shield to protect protestors of the Dakota Access Pipeline project near a Native American reservation in North Dakota, organizers said, just ahead of a federal deadline for activists to leave the camp they have been occupying. It comes as North Dakota law enforcement backed away from a previous plan to cut off supplies to the camp--an idea quickly abandoned after an outcry and with law enforcement's treatment of Dakota Access Pipeline protestors increasingly under the microscope. Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, a contingent of more than 2,000...

orth Dakota regulators granted a route permit Wednesday for what will be the largest crude oil pipeline out of the state's fruitful Bakken oil field, leaving Iowa as the only state left to approve the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. Public Service Commission members Julie Fedorchak and Brian Kalk voted to grant the permit for Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, which plans initially to ship up to 450,000 barrels of oil per day on the 1,168-mile pipeline from the Bakken and Three Forks regions in western North Dakota. "This is a massive infrastructure construction project,...