Tribe: Trump 'trying to abuse American Indians' by expediting pipelines

Tribal leaders say President Donald Trump's push to speed up construction of two controversial oil pipelines will wreak environmental destruction across the country.

"It just goes to show that this president is not trying to make America great again, he's trying to make it bad again," Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, told reporters Wednesday. "And he's trying to abuse American Indians again."

On Tuesday, Trump penned a series of executive memoranda seeking to revive the Keystone XL pipeline and complete the Dakota Access pipeline — two projects assailed by environmentalists and tribal members.

One order aims to speed up or stop entirely an environmental review the Obama administration ordered in December that effectively halted construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. That 1,172-mile project would transport crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota to distribution hubs in Patoka, Ill.

The Standing Rock Sioux has led the opposition to Dakota Access. And Archambault on Wednesday said the fight will continue.

Standing Rock, joined by hundreds of other tribes, maintains that the pipeline would violate tribal treaty and water rights because of its passage under the Missouri River, which the Standing Rock reservation relies upon for drinking water.

"We have to start preparing for what's to come," Archambault said. "We’re not going to stand for tyranny."

He said the fight must now go to Washington, D.C.

Trump won't be swayed by protests such as the camps that occupied U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers land in North Dakota for months, Archambault said. The Standing Rock tribal council and other local leaders have asked campers to leave, fearing that melting ice and spring showers will create a flooded mess at the camps.

"We have to go and we have to make noise where we can be heard," the chairman said.

Though Trump has called for a "renegotiation" of terms surrounding both pipelines, pipeline foes said the Dakota Access project is nearly complete.

"I'll try not to laugh out loud," said Jan Hasselman, staff attorney at Earth Justice, a nonprofit environmental law organization. "I don’t think there's a lot of in between space for a compromise. They have doubled down again and again on putting the pipeline in this place."

Pipeline proponents on Tuesday celebrated Trump's announcement. Labor union and energy industry leaders said the Dakota Access and Keystone XL projects will create thousands of new jobs, pump millions into local economies and improve the nation's energy security.

Brigham McCown, the former head of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the pipelines are environmentally friendly because they are safer than transporting oil by rail or truck.

"On the merits, pipelines are the safest option for transporting large volumes of natural gas and oil to market," McCown told reporters Tuesday. "The approval of these projects will enhance safety and enhance environmental stewardship by ensuring these products are moved as safely as possible."

At the protest camps, which have thinned considerably in recent weeks, leaders fear that Trump's directives may soon lead to their forcible removal.

"A raid is coming,” said Chase Iron Eyes, a camp leader and former North Dakota Congressional candidate. “It’s Trump here, and his people are moving very quickly.”

— John Hult, of the Sioux Fall Argus Leader, contributed to this story.