Canadian pipeline giant sues Biden

PARK RAPIDS, Minn. — As Native oil pipeline foes stepped up pressure for U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel Enbridge Energy Inc.’s Line 3 construction here, backers of another pipeline project announced July 2, that they are suing him for cancelling theirs. You guessed it: TC Energy Corp. is filing a complaint over its failed Keystone XL.

Both oil industry giants are private Canadian infrastructure builders aiming to boost shipments of tar-sands crude oil, or diluted bitumen (dilbit), from the fracking fields of Alberta Province through the U.S. heartland to Texas Gulf Coast refineries and export facilities.

“TC Energy will be seeking to recover more than U.S. $15 billion in damages that it has suffered as a result of the U.S. government’s breach of its NAFTA obligations,” the corporation said in filing a notice of intent to initiate a claim under the terms if the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The 1994 agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico allows businesses to pursue economic damage payments from signatory governments whose actions contribute to companies’ failures to realize anticipated profits. In this case, the action was Biden’s fulfillment on his first day in office of his campaign pledge to revoke KXL’s Presidential Permit.

The pledge responded to demands of Lakota and other Native nations and grassroots constituents who objected to being left out of consultations required under Indian treaty and environmental law obligations. Treaty law violations are also at the root of Anishinaabe tribes’ lawsuits and water protectors’ Summer of Resistance to Line 3.

“This pipeline is a violent assault on Indigenous people and their treaty rights — and a climate catastrophe that threatens all of us,” Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Ginger Cassidy proclaimed as she risked arrest July 1 for helping halt construction in a civil disobedience action.

“Climate chaos is already causing real world suffering, and massive new fossil fuel expansion like this is completely reckless. Biden and the banks financing this project must withdraw support for Line 3 immediately,” she added.

Oglala Lakota matriarch Mama Julz, founder of Mothers against Meth, locked herself to heavy equipment in the civil disobedience, declaring, “We’re not going to stop this pipeline by prayer only. Prayer and action go hand in hand!”

Dozens of water protectors “flowed over a Line 3 construction site” that day, according to a media release from Giniw Collective. The action was among the most recent of many over the past half-year since Enbridge Energy Inc. began drilling operations at 20 rivers and 800 wetlands at Mississippi Headwaters that are crucial to the Native wild-rice economy in Anishinaabe treaty territory.

Sheriff’s deputies in Hubbard County have blockaded Giniw Collective’s Native-led resistance camp, Namewag, restricting residents’ freedom of movement, they said. “A dozen people were arrested in their driveway” in the last week of June, according to its media release.

Sheriff Cory Aukes explained that deputies posted a notice at the camp entrance on June 28 warning that vehicular travel on the trail to it was in violation of the county Land Use Ordinance and that the trail would eventually be barricaded. All but two of the approximately 40 vehicles at the camp remained the next day, Aukes said.

“People are allowed to travel on foot or to access the property off of Big Buck Dr., which is a public roadway,” the sheriff noted in a public statement.

“Actions continue against Line 3, which has yet to receive any comment from the White House,” Giniw Collective stated. “While the federal and state administrations pledge action on violence against Native women, there are nearly 5,000 employees in northern Minnesota building Line 3, most of whom are from out of state.

“A second sex trafficking ring that included Enbridge employees was busted on Monday,” the collective warned, as its adherents hoisted a banner saying, “Violence against Mother Earth is violence against women: No man camps.”

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.net)

The post Canadian pipeline giant sues Biden first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

Visit Original Source