The standing rock sioux tribe and supporters from across the world have been protesting construction of a pipeline in North Dakota for several months now. While Obama did suspend construction on certain lands, construction has proceeded in other areas which are currently being disputed by protesters. Many journalists have repeatedly asked both presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and US president elect Donald Trump, if they support construction of the pipeline in North Dakota, to which no answers have been given. What has been made clear however, is Trumps financial ties and investments to the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which is about 75% complete already, according to the Houston chronicle.
#NoDAPL protesters campaign at Standing Rock – September 2016
Due to the fact that all US presidential candidates must file a financial disclosure form when they declare their candidacy, Trump’s form was able to be revealed to us. Perhaps his hesitation in revealing this information to us, was because it revealed that he holds between $500,000 and $1,000,000 worth of stock in Energy Transfer Partners (ETE) and $50,000 to $100,000 in Conoco-Phillips – both of which are financing the Dakota Access pipeline. To make matters worse, Mike Catanzaro, a climate change denier, will lead Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump’s energy transition team. Catanzaro now works as a partner at the lobbying firm CGCN, where his clients include Noble Energy, Koch Industries, EnCana Oil and Gas, Halliburton, Devon Energy and others. For those clients, he lobbies on issues such as pushing for more drilling on public lands on behalf of EnCana, against emissions regulations for drilling onshore and offshore wells on public lands for Hess Corporation and Devon, and for offshore drilling in Palestine on behalf of Noble Energy and the state of Israel.
Kelcy Warren, CEO of one of the pipeline companies has also donated $100,000 to Donald trumps campaign. It has also been revealed that Trump’s prospective Secretary of Energy, Frack mining baron Harold Hamm — founder and CEO of Continental Resources — stands to gain economically from the building of TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline and Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline. Harold is pushing for contracts which will guarantee the Dakota Access Pipeline will be used to ship his investors fracked oil. According to the Houston chronicle, “Warren’s Energy Transfer grew rapidly through an ownership model known as a master limited partnership model, or MLP, which favors growth in a tax-friendly structure. The company now functions through four publicly traded MLPs, which do not pay corporate income taxes and pass on most of their income to investors in payments similar to stock dividends.”.
In fact, the profits are already rolling in for some of the big players behind the pipeline scene. The minute Trump was declared the president-elect, the stock price of Energy Transfer Partners shot up by 15%. The news was welcomed by the entire fossil fuel industry, as Trump has already declared that he will push for policies that would allow for expansion of drilling, fracking and mining across the country. According to Bloomberg, when the price of oil was $106.50 a barrel, Kelcy Warren announced his plan to build the North Dakota Access pipeline, since then the price per barrel has dropped to $69. According to Kelcy Warren, nobody could be happier about this, as almost all of his competition was “absorbed or vaporized”. Now with the oil price climbing again, things are sure looking good for Trump and his oil industry cronies. For the protesters of standing rock however, it is an environmental disaster in the making.
The North Dakota Public Service Commission expects to reach a decision on the Dakota Access pipeline during its Jan. 20 meeting.
Owners and investors of the Dakota Access pipeline say delays have cost them millions, they are taking their concerns to federal court, seeking permission to push through with completion of the controversial 1,172-mile project. Whether this will change anything, it is yet to be known. Confirmation on the future of this pipeline will depend largely on the Trump administration due to take office on the 20th of January, 2017. As far as we can tell, Donald Trump is being backed by crude oil and frack mining corporations, Trumps position could be a very big conflict of interest.
In a live interview with the MSNBC, the leader of the standing rock sioux tribe, chairman Dave Archambault, claims that Donald Trump could prove disastrous for their cause, which he claims is the protection of water. he stated, “What we are standing up for is water, and you cant get any more basic than that. but what we are going up against is power… We have a political force, we have [presidential] candidates who receive contributions from the oil industry.”
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