Native Sun News Today: Native activists keep up pressure on pipelines amid new lawsuit

Indianz.Com > News > Native Sun News Today: Native activists keep up pressure on pipelines amid new lawsuit

Mama Julz: “We’re not going to stop this pipeline by prayer only. Prayer and action go hand in hand!”

Oglala Lakota matriarch Mama Julz (Julie Richards), founder of Mothers against Meth, locked herself to heavy equipment in a July 1 civil disobedience action seeking the president’s cancellation of the Line 3 construction project in treaty-protected territory. Photo courtesy Giniw Collective

Canadian pipeline giant sues Biden

Monday, July 12, 2021

By Talli Nauman

Native Sun News Today Health & Environment Editor

nativesunnews.today

PARK RAPIDS, Minnesota — 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.

giniw collective (@GiniwCollective) on X

BREAKING: Water Protectors Flow Over Enbridge Line 3 Worksite, Native Matriarch Locks Down, @RAN Executive Director Risks Arrest. Mama Julz, Oglala Lakota, said, “We’re not going to stop this pipeline by prayer only. Prayer and action go hand in hand!” #StopLine3 cc: @potus

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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.