Tag Archives: U.S. Army Corps

U.S. Army Corps allows Dakota Access pipeline to stay open during review

By Laila Kearney and Devika Krishna Kumar

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Friday said it will allow Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access oil pipeline to keep running during an environmental review, a blow to activists who wanted the line shut after a key environmental permit was scrapped last year.

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has been the flashpoint for a years-long legal battle between its operator, Energy Transfer LP, and several Native tribes that want it shut after opposing its construction. It is the most important artery for crude transport out of North Dakota, shipping up to 570,000 barrels of North Dakota’s crude production daily.

Energy Transfer shares were up 2.5% in afternoon trading.

Last year, native tribes led by the Standing Rock Sioux won a victory when Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia vacated a permit allowing the line to run under Lake Oahe, a key water source.

The Corps could have shut the line pending another review, but deferred to the judge. Boasberg gave operators of the pipeline until April 19 to make the case for keeping the line flowing before he issues a ruling.

The tribes opposing DAPL sought to shut the line, and frustrated tribal representatives decried what they called one in a series of decisions that abrogates the rights of Native Americans.

“It’s the continuation of a terrible history that we believed was going to change,” Earthjustice lawyer Jan Hasselman, who represents the Standing Rock Sioux, told the court. “So we are really disappointed to hear this news from the Army Corps.”

Energy companies said a shutdown would increase reliance on crowded rail lines and smaller pipelines and hamper transport of crude from the Bakken region, where more than 1 million barrels are produced daily.

The Army Corps is expected to produce an environmental impact statement (EIS) by March of 2022, said Corps attorney Ben Schifman.

“The Corps is proceeding with the EIS process … but at this time has not taken any additional action,” he said.

The Standing Rock Sioux and environmental groups have ramped up pressure on the White House to shut the line. President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to reduce U.S. carbon emissions and protect minority groups from pollution threats. It canceled a presidential permit for the unbuilt Keystone XL pipeline from Canada but has not shut an operating pipeline.

In 2016, tens of thousands of protesters flocked to the site to support tribes who said they had not been adequately consulted about the line’s construction.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney and Devika Krishna Kumar; editing by David Evans, David Gregorio and Grant McCool)

Puerto Rico governor knocks U.S. Army Corps response to restoring power after hurricane

Cars drive under a partially collapsed utility pole, after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in September, in Naguabo, Puerto Rico

By Nick Brown and Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lacked urgency in restoring power to the storm-hit island, and that it was pushing the clean-up effort down the road.

The Army Corp was tasked as the leading federal agency to oversee power restoration in Puerto Rico about a week after the U.S. territory was devastated by Hurricane Maria.

Speaking to Reuters on a trip to New York, where he plans to meet Governor Andrew Cuomo, Rossello deflected to the Army Corps some of the criticism his administration has faced since Maria made landfall on Sept. 20.

Rossello and the island’s power authority, PREPA, were criticized for initially declining to seek so-called mutual aid from other U.S. public power utilities after the storm knocked out electricity to all of Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million residents.

That decision has become a focal point because it partly spurred PREPA to sign a no-bid contract with private firm Whitefish Energy Holdings – a deal Rossello canceled on Sunday after an uproar over its provisions.

Rossello has since sought mutual aid from utilities in New York and Florida.

But the initial decision to forgo it, he said on Thursday, was due in part to an understanding with the Army Corps that it could help restore power to Puerto Rico within 45 days, and would foot the bill at a time when the island’s bankrupt government could not afford to shell out much cash.

Six weeks after the storm, only about 30 percent of the island’s grid has been restored.

“We are very unsatisfied with the urgency the Corps” has shown, Rossello said. “Everything that has been done right now has been done by PREPA or the subcontractors PREPA has had.”

Jeff Hawk, a spokesman for the Army Corps, said in an emailed statement that “contracts usually take days to a couple of weeks, so we are moving quickly.”

Rossello also said he had some concerns about new parameters laid out on Tuesday by the federal board managing Puerto Rico’s finances, which would require his administration to submit a revised draft of a fiscal turnaround plan for the island by Dec. 22.

“We are in the process of answering to the board some of our concerns with the timelines,” Rossello said, adding that some of the parameters “are appropriate, and some are not, given the lack of information and the level of devastation in Puerto Rico.”

Puerto Rico filed the largest government bankruptcy in U.S. history this year to restructure $72 billion in debt.

Rossello said the revised plan would be centered around a strategy of reducing the size of government, boosting private sector partnerships, and reforming education and healthcare systems.

 

(Reporting by Nick Brown; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Susan Thomas)