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The Guardian reports that the U.S. Army sent a letter, dated 7 February, to member of Congress Raúl Grijalva, saying it would grant a permit for the construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Work could resume as early as 8 February.
"I have determined that there is no cause for completing any additional environmental analysis," wrote Douglas W Lamon, the senior official performing the duties of assistant secretary of the army, wrote in a notice to the federal register.
More recent news in Standing Rock from Feb 9:
The restarting of the drilling operation, which a pipeline spokeswoman confirmed on Thursday morning, began soon after the US government gave the oil corporation the green light to proceed on Wednesday. The controversial pipeline could be transporting crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois within three months.
At the Standing Rock camps in Cannon Ball – where activists have been stationed since last spring to fight the project – indigenous and environmental organizers vowed to stay put and continue opposing the pipeline.
[Continues...]
And from Feb 11:
Army veterans from across the country have arrived in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, or are currently en route after the news that Donald Trump's administration has allowed the oil corporation to finish drilling across the Missouri river.
The growing group of military veterans could make it harder for police and government officials to try to remove hundreds of activists who remain camped near the construction site and, some hope, could limit use of excessive force by law enforcement during demonstrations.
"We are prepared to put our bodies between Native elders and a privatized military force," said Elizabeth Williams, a 34-year-old air force veteran, who arrived at Standing Rock with a group of vets late on Friday. "We've stood in the face of fire before. We feel a responsibility to use the skills we have."
Previous stories:
Army Corp [sic] of Engineers Now Accepting Public Comment on the Dakota Access Pipeline
Army Corps of Engineers Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline and many others in the archives.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 12 2017, @04:50PM
Here, what one president can arbitrarily do, another can arbitrarily undo.
Congrats. You've just argued away the existence of the office of the president.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 13 2017, @04:37AM
Congrats. You've just argued away the existence of the office of the president.
Just because the US President is subject to constraints doesn't mean that they don't exist. After all, the office exists in the first place despite your assertion otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @07:13AM
What you fail to understand, which is completely understandable since you are so ignorant of how the world works, is that the office of presidency has been guided by norms. One of those norms is that arbitrarily undoing the actions of a previous president is only done under exceptional circumstances. In other words, there is a huge difference between ability do something and actually doing it. The loser president's schtick has been to ignore norms, but his anti-social behavior is not valid grounds for eliminating traditions of respecting the actions of prior presidents. Slack is the lubricant that makes the world work, if we decide that rigid adherence to lowest common denominator rules is the best we can do then the operation of the government would grind to a halt.
And now you may commence with the obvious idiocy of someone who himself is too rigid and callow to understand anything I just wrote.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 13 2017, @02:06PM
What you fail to understand, which is completely understandable since you are so ignorant of how the world works, is that the office of presidency has been guided by norms. One of those norms is that arbitrarily undoing the actions of a previous president is only done under exceptional circumstances.
Electing Trump satisfied your "exceptional circumstances". Check.
The loser president's schtick has been to ignore norms, but his anti-social behavior is not valid grounds for eliminating traditions of respecting the actions of prior presidents.
Getting elected is valid grounds for eliminating the traditions of respecting the actions of prior presidents. Let us also recall that arbitrary actions are being undone here. Check.
It should never be a norm to honor bad or inimical policies and corrupt decisions of previous administrations. It sounds to me like you will be glad that this norm doesn't exist when future presidents undo the harms created by a Trump presidency.
Slack is the lubricant that makes the world work, if we decide that rigid adherence to lowest common denominator rules is the best we can do then the operation of the government would grind to a halt.
Slack hasn't worked at the federal level for many decades. It's too easy to abuse. Here was a classic example. The pipeline owner jumped through all the hoops, yet still gets denied merely because the Obama administration has enough slack to get away with blocking construction for as long as they were in power.
And a lot of slack has been abused heavily by the US intelligence community. Where's your talk of "norms" when it concerns wholesale surveillance, condoned torture and other lawbreaking, and over seventy years of meddling in the world at large?
The obvious solution is to have the feds do far less than they currently do. Then you can have your slack without having your tyrannical government.
And now you may commence with the obvious idiocy of someone who himself is too rigid and callow to understand anything I just wrote.
Because lack of understanding has to be the only reason one would disagree. I can't help but notice how we've gone from a discussion of the rule of law to touchie feelie notions of political squatters' rights where things have to be honored indefinitely, merely because someone got elected in the past. Here's my view. If you don't have rule of law, you don't have such norms.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:43PM
The loser president's schtick has been to ignore norms, but his anti-social behavior is not valid grounds for eliminating traditions of respecting the actions of prior presidents.
How about norms such as using the power of the office of president exploiting traditions topublicly humiliate [washingtonpost.com] rivals? Here, Trump was invited to the 2011 White House Correspondents' Association dinner and then publicly joked about by both President Obama and Seth Meyer at length. Then the media proceeded to speculate for years (up to the present day) as to how that made Trump feel. If we're going to speak of alleged norms, we should note the norm of ignoring norms when they don't suit previous holders of the office.