North Dakota is seeking to intervene in the latest DAPL lawsuit

An activist battles the wind as he walks past the Oceti Sakowin Camp as snowstorms grip the area around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 6, 2016. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The state of North Dakota has asked to become a defendant in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s new lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers seeking to close the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The complaint of the tribe, submitted last month, accuses the Army Corps of violating federal law by allowing the pipeline to operate without an easement, adequate environmental review or proper spill response contingency plans, among other violations.

North Dakota argued in a memo filed last week that closing the pipeline, often called DAPL, would cost the state government hundreds of millions of dollars, jeopardize thousands of jobs and disrupt regional supply chains. North Dakota also argues that a federal court order closing the DAPL could infringe on the state’s right to regulate its own lands and resources.

The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over a portion of the pipeline that passes under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River about a half-mile upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation.

Standing Rock opposes the pipeline over concerns that it violates the tribe’s sovereignty, disrupted sacred cultural sites and endangers the tribe’s water supply.

If a judge were to grant Standing Rock’s request to close the DAPL, North Dakota’s state government would lose an expected $900 million in revenue in the first 12 months, Susan Sisk, director of the Office of Budget and Management, said in a statement. statement filed with the court.

The state relies on energy taxes to finance a significant portion of its operations, Sisk wrote.

She noted that more than 10% of North Dakota’s annual general revenue comes from oil and gas taxes, and nearly 60% of the state’s tax and fee revenue comes from oil and gas extraction and production .

DAPL is a big part of that equation, according to Sisk. She wrote that half of the crude oil produced in North Dakota is transported by pipeline. If the pipeline were to disappear, that oil could also be transported by rail or truck, but existing infrastructure would not be able to move it at the same pace as DAPL, she added.

State officials say energy workers would also be at risk. Shutting down DAPL would cause North Dakota to temporarily lose about 8,450 to 9,300 jobs, and permanently lose 1,700 to 2,200 jobs, Nathan Anderson, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, wrote in court filings by the state.

Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring and Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak also filed affidavits in support of North Dakota’s motion to intervene in the lawsuit.

Goehring wrote that if the DAPL were closed, the railroads would have to make room for up to 800 additional rail cars each day to transport the oil that would otherwise have traveled through the pipeline. This would give the rail system less room to transport North Dakota’s agricultural resources, which Goehring said would hurt the state’s agricultural economy.

The state also claims in lawsuits that transporting oil by rail and truck is not as safe because it poses a greater risk of air pollution and accidents.

Fedorchak noted in her statement that the Public Service Commission has invested a significant amount of regulatory resources in DAPL. The pipeline’s route was chosen to minimize safety and environmental risks, avoid Indigenous and federal lands and connect with existing infrastructure, she wrote. The force agreed at the time that the route chosen was the best, Fedorchak added.

The case is before U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who presided over the tribe’s 2016 lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers challenging the pipeline.

As part of that lawsuit, Boasberg ordered the Army Corps of Engineers in 2020 to conduct a more thorough environmental impact study of the pipeline, which is still pending. He also ordered DAPL to stop operating, although an appeals court reversed that decision.

The Army Corps of Engineers published a draft version of the environmental impact statement in September 2023.

In commentary on the draft study, North Dakota the Army Corps of Engineers urged so that the pipeline can remain in operation. Many of the arguments the State made in those comments in defense of the DAPL also appeared in the State’s memo supporting its proposal to intervene.

The Army Corps of Engineers has not yet filed a response to Standing Rock’s latest legal challenge. North Dakota states in its memo that the Army Corps does not oppose its request to intervene as a defendant.

The more than 1,000-mile pipeline transports crude oil from northwestern North Dakota to Illinois and has been in operation since 2017. The tract includes unceded land recognized as Sioux Nation property under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.

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