North Dakota Senators John Hoeven and Heidi Heitkamp are not letting the latest attempt to derail the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline go unnoticed.
The Obama administration Wednesday threatened to further delay the critical infrastructure project by ordering the Department of the Army to publish a Notice of Intent to require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register. A move that sidesteps the professionals at the Army Corps of Engineers who have already concluded that the project will result in no significant impacts. In fact, the career civil servants at the Army Corps actually recommended that the easement be approved, but were silenced in the face of politics.
Across the aisle, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp echoed Hoeven, saying that the administration’s “legally unprecedented” effort would only promote continued division and delay. “Removing decision-making from the U.S. Army Corps District Office and looking at an issue not properly before the Corps does not provide the certainty, or the security North Dakotans need or that the protesters are seeking,” she said.
It should not go unnoticed that, even in a state of political polarization, democrats and republicans agree that construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline should be completed without further delay.