Keystone XL Pipeline – Page 3

An incompatible relationship exists between the federal trust responsibility over Indian tribes and tribal sovereignty, the conflicting nature of which has been exacerbated by numerous judicial confirmations of the unbridled congressional plenary power over all tribal affairs. Nowhere is there more conflict between the trust responsibility and sovereignty than within the context of mineral resource development on tribal lands. The evolution of the regulatory framework of Indian mineral development can be viewed as a continuum, with maximum trust obligation and minimum tribal sovereignty on one extreme, and an inversion of these two variables on the other. There currently exists pending legislation that would amend the 2005 Energy Policy Act in a manner that would allow tribes greater autonomy in developing their mineral resources without necessarily compromising the trust relationship. But, as this article suggests in using the Keystone XL Pipeline as a case study, tribes should not rely on Congress to act in the interest of tribal sovereignty unless they can attach this interest to a strong political impetus. Invoking both the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and Convention No. 169 of the International Labour Organization, this article contends that attaining a understanding of American Indian rights as fundamental through an international human rights framework can help untangle the web of conflicting doctrines that very much defines American Indian law today, opening the door to a paradigm shift in the domestic relationship between tribes and the federal government that would allow tribes to attain economic self-sufficiency through their own assets.

Keystone XL permit renewal before the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission

August 13, 2015Sarah M Donnelly

Previous coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline in South Dakota.

TransCanada received a permit with conditions in 2008, but lack of DOS approval led to it expiring before the foreign company could start construction on the Keystone XL pipeline. Several tribes and state citizens are fighting renewal before the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, which recently concluded nine days of hearings about the pipeline. Tribes asserted TransCanada had not met its burden of satisfying federal law as a condition of the permit.

Link to recordings and documents on the SDPUC website.

There already is a Keystone pipeline that runs through South Dakota. The Phase 1 pipe starts in Canada, at the same location the Keystone XL pipeline will start, then cuts east across Saskatchewan and Manitoba before going south to Nebraska. The XL version is bigger, obviously, and will cut an almost straight line from Alberta to Nebraska on its way to the Gulf of Mexico to take advantage of the Bakken crude boom in Montana and the Dakotas. PUC previously concluded that the negative effects generated from billions of gallons of oil pumping over the State’s water sources unsupervised was greatly outweighed by its benefits, namely the $9.1 million in tax revenue it was supposed to pay counties. However, the full amount was never paid and now TransCanada promises to pay even more money and still guarantees job growth that DOS has reported is negligible.