War: ETE Asks Fed Court to Overrule Corps of Politicized Engineers
Yesterday MDN told you that a war of words has broken out between the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Politicized Engineers and Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) over the Dakota Access Pipeline (see It’s War: ETE vs. Obama’s Army Corps of (Politicized) Engineers). The war has quickly gone from words to litigation. ETE has filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal district court in Washington, D.C. asking the court to recognize the pipeline's right to complete the project--a project now 90% complete--apart from final written approvals from the Corps of Engineers. ETE argues that the Obama Administration is politically interfering with the Corps, which had previously approved the project. ETE says: "...the Corps has never before declined to provide written documentation of the granting of an easement, a perfunctory ministerial act, to use federally owned land after granting regulatory permission for work on the very same land." In other words, the Corps is using withheld paperwork to stop the project. Therefore, the lawsuit seeks the courts permission (called a declaratory judgment) to finish the pipeline apart from the politicized Corps' written permission/paperwork. ETE wants to do what the Corps previously approved. They have a strong case...
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