Free Republic

(The Center Square) – Eight years after the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and accompanying protests at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the long-awaited trial between Energy Transfer and Greenpeace is winding down. Closing arguments in the trial are set to begin Monday, followed by jury deliberations and a verdict. The lawsuit hinges on Greenpeace’s involvement in protests that occurred in the fall of 2016, as well as its communication with banks that were financing the pipeline’s construction. Energy Transfer has tried to prove that the environmental activist group funded and incited violence, trespassing and other unlawful acts,...

MANDAN, N.D. (AP) — Closing arguments are scheduled to begin on Monday in a pipeline company’s lawsuit against Greenpeace, a case the environmental advocacy group said could have consequences for free speech and protest rights and threaten the organization’s future. The jury will deliberate after the closing arguments and jury instructions. Nine jurors and two alternates have heard the case. Dallas-based Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access alleged defamation, trespass, nuisance and other offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, its American branch Greenpeace USA, and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. The pipeline company is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars...

The Texas-based company, Energy Transfer, alleges protest tactics by Greenpeace delayed the project, which began transporting oil in 2017 after President Donald Trump backed in his first term. Protests against the pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation drew thousands, but Greenpeace says it did not lead them and the lawsuit threatens free speech. The organisation "could face financial ruin, ending over 50 years of environmental activism" if it loses, it also says. The trial in North Dakota is expected to last five weeks, beginning with jury selection on Monday. The lawsuit, filed in state court, accuses Greenpeace of an...

The veterans will be joined by Tulsi Gabbard, the Democratic representative from Hawaii, who has developed a positive reputation among Republicans and Democrats alike. "Next weekend, the congresswoman will be joining thousands of veterans from across the country to stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota who are protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through their tribal lands, with grave concerns about the contamination of their major water source,” Gabbard’s Press Secretary Emily Latimer confirmed in an email to the Observer.

Sandmann’s family soon hired RunSwitch, a media relations firm with strong ties to the Republican party, to handle the crisis, and L Lin Wood, a high-profile libel attorney known for aggressively pursuing lawsuits against the media. Sandmann has complained that the video was spreading “misinformation” about the incident. *** Unlike Sandmann, Phillips does not have a PR firm to represent him and his side of the story, or an attorney to challenge critical journalists. His support team consists of two people: Ray Kingfisher, a northern Cheyenne who has known him for decades, and Daniel Nelson, a non-Native “ally” and program...

Clean-up crews are racing to clear acres of debris at the largest Dakota Access protest camp before the spring thaw turns the snowy, trash-covered plains into an environmental disaster area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday that the camp, located on federal land, would be closed Feb. 22 in order to “prevent injuries and significant environmental damage in the likely event of flooding in this area” at the mouth of the Cannonball River in North Dakota. “Without proper remediation, debris, trash, and untreated waste will wash into the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe,” the Corps said in its...

North Dakota officials are encouraging hundreds of Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters to respect a directive to leave a sprawling, months-old encampment on federal land. According to Standing Rock Sioux tribal leader Dave Archambault, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent him a letter Friday that said all federal lands north of the Cannonball River will be closed to public access Dec. 5 for “safety concerns,” including the oncoming winter and the increasingly contentious clashes between protesters and police. The Oceti Sakowin camp is on Corps land in southern North Dakota and is where the vast majority of the several...

A director at a liberal think tank in Washington, D.C. said on Tuesday that white privilege and white supremacy led to the Energy Transfer oil pipeline project that includes land in North Dakota, and compared it to building a pipeline under Arlington Cemetery and across the Potomac River. […] Phyllis Bennis, director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ New Internationalism Project, first quoted David Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, who has said the pipeline would harm burial grounds and threaten the water of Lake Oahe, the location of a Sioux ancestral site. […] “The equivalent, we might think,...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A protest of a four-state, $3.8 billion oil pipeline turned violent after tribal officials say construction crews destroyed American Indian burial and cultural sites on private land in southern North Dakota. Morton County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Donnell Preskey said four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured after several hundred protesters confronted construction crews Saturday afternoon at the site just outside the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. One of the security officers was taken to a Bismarck hospital for undisclosed injuries. The two guard dogs were taken to a Bismarck veterinary clinic, Preskey said.

The Obama administration said it would not authorize construction on a critical stretch of the Dakota Access pipeline, handing a significant victory to the Indian tribe fighting the project the same day the group lost a court battle. The administration said construction would halt until it can do more environmental assessments. The Department of Justice, the Army and the Interior Department jointly announced that construction would pause on the pipeline near North Dakota's Lake Oahe, a major water source on the Missouri River for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The agencies will now decide whether they need to reconsider permitting...