Friday, November 25, 2016

More on the chasm between the grandstanders' Dakota Access Pipeline narrative and the truth

You've seen the Facebook rants.

Here's what's really going on:

The record shows that Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, spent years working diligently with federal, state and local officials to route the pipeline safely and with the fewest possible disruptions. The contrast between the protesters' claims and the facts on record is stunning.
Protesters claim that the pipeline was "fast-tracked," denying tribal leaders the opportunity to participate in the process. In fact, project leaders participated in 559 meetings with community leaders, local officials and organizations to listen to concerns and fine-tune the route. The company asked for, and received, a tougher federal permitting process at sites along the Missouri River.
This more difficult procedure included a mandated review of each water crossing's potential effect on historical artifacts and locations.
Protesters claim that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to consult tribal leaders as required by federal law. The record shows that the corps held 389 meetings with 55 tribes. Corps officials met many times with leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which initiated the lawsuit and the protests.
Protesters claim that the Standing Rock Sioux pursued meetings with an unresponsive Army Corps of Engineers. Court records show that the roles in that story were in fact reversed. The corps alerted the tribe to the pipeline permit application in the fall of 2014 and repeatedly requested comments from and meetings with tribal leaders, only to be rebuffed over and over. Tribal leaders ignored requests for comment and canceled meetings multiple times.
In September 2014 alone, the Corps made five unsuccessful attempts to meet with Standing Rock Sioux leaders. The next month, a meeting was arranged, but "when the Corps timely arrived for the meeting, Tribal Chairman David Archambault told them that the conclave had started earlier than planned and had already ended," according to a federal judge.
At a planned meeting the next month, the tribe took the pipeline off the agenda and refused to discuss it. This stonewalling by tribal leaders continued for a year and a half.
Typical of the misinformation spread during the protests is a comment made by Jesse Jackson, who recently joined the activists in North Dakota. He said the decision to reroute the pipeline so that it crossed close to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's water intake was "racism."
He did not mention, possibly because he did not know, that the company is paying to relocate the tribe's water intake to a new spot 70 miles from the location of the contested pipeline crossing.
The pipeline route was adjusted based on concerns expressed by locals — including other tribal leaders — who met with company and Army Corps of Engineers officials.
The court record reveals that the Standing Rock Sioux refused to meet with corps officials to discuss the route until after site work had begun. That work is now 77 percent completed at a cost of $3 billion.
It's just an irresistible flashpoint for identity-politics-and-earth-worship-mongers.

They hate human advancement, even as they enjoy its fruits.


15 comments:

  1. I think it's more about respecting Indian rights which some say might have been denied them when America was exceptional and great once. It will all play out in the courts and Big Oil will win. The cost will be passed onto the consumer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Go back over the post. Energy Transfer Partners gave the Standing Rock Sioux every opportunity to give their input during the planning stage.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm sure Energy Transfer Partners is good partners. Rake it in, partners!

    ReplyDelete
  4. But it does sound like a lack of communication, surely not by the lawyers. Maybe a lack of respect, ya think, maybe? Hail hail the rich and powerful! For they shall inherit the wind and the dust in the wind.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I truly don't understand this problem you have with making money

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sorry, you'll never see me sorry for the oil barons.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "As pronounced as the trend already is, it's only just the beginning, experts say. Looming technological advances will wipe out more jobs, broadening the base of disenfranchised, unemployable and frustrated citizens. Meanwhile, elites with the skills to flourish in the digital economy will get richer. And governments will have to figure out how to help struggling citizens."
    http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/17/technology/trump-tech-populism-automation/index.html?sr=fbCNN112616trump-tech-populism-automation0401AMVODtopLink&linkId=31587839

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sounds like the thing to do is get those skills and join the "elites."

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Maybe you're one of the elite. How shall we know you? By the warmth of your trickle down? Hey, I got an idea, why don't the elites join us down here wherever we are, waiting for the markets to set us free?

    "...the key issue for America today is a lack of “shared prosperity,” as working and middle-class citizens are struggling.

    “The lack of shared prosperity has rightly been a central issue in the 2016 campaign, but the diagnoses and proposed solutions are way off the mark,” the report points out.

    As the middle class began to stagnate amid globalization and technological change, instead of increasing investments, the US made “unsustainable promises” to maintain the “illusion of shared prosperity,” the report notes. That included extending credit, expanding entitlements and increasing public-sector benefits.

    The report points out that while politicians resort to blame—from immigrants to Wall Street to well-off Americans to other countries, big business and international trade—the solutions offered are “emotionally appealing but simplistic and deeply misguided.”

    The HBS report focuses on solutions to make the US more competitive, allowing businesses to compete in domestic and international markets while improving wages and living standards of the average citizen.

    “When these occur together, a nation prospers,” according to the report. “When one occurs without the other, a nation is not truly competitive and prosperity is not sustainable.”

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-competitiveness-project-harvard-business-school-hbs-michael-porter-030021739.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma&utm_content=bufferbeb65&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    ReplyDelete
  11. Grab them low hangin' fruits, oh mighty elites!

    It's all feeling a lot like the last time the Clintons were having to step away from power — oil is again struggling to climb from multi-year lows as OPEC seeks to corral crude producers inside and outside the organization to curb supply, the yen is again (for now) the best-performing G-10 currency for the year.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/these-charts-show-that-trump-is-bringing-the-1990s-back-to-markets/ar-AAkDQ1p?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=SL5JDHP

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oil makes the convenience, security and advancement of human life possible.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, is that the fruits you speak of. Gotta get me one of them STEM degrees and help make the convenience, security and advancement of human life possible maybe.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Good way to make some nice bucks! And contribute to the betterment of the human condition at the same time.

    ReplyDelete