It should not have taken thousands of protesters to camp out at Standing Rock-and especially not the use of water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas by local authorities as they tried, in vain, to disperse the crowds-for federal authorities to seriously consider the grievance that brought the members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters to assemble there in the first place. The decision announced Sunday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to not grant a needed easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline segment under a North Dakota water reservoir was welcome but badly overdue.
A certain amount of celebration by oil pipeline opponents is understandable, of course. State officials and the pipeline's developer, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, have treated protester concerns with the same level of respect Richard Daley's Chicago police officers extended to anti-Vietnam War demonstrators in 1968. The U.S. has a long, shameful history of taking advantage of America's indigenous peoples, particularly when energy and mineral rights are involved. Donald Trump's election hasn't exactly signaled good times for the environmental movement either.
And before conservatives start screaming about politics and overreaching by an outgoing administration in its final weeks, they ought to acknowledge the next president is already flexing the same muscles by promising, for example, to personally intervene (with steep tariffs, if necessary) when companies are moving facilities abroad. So let's not delude ourselves into believing there's some sort of ideological purity involved. Rather, the Standing Rock standoff comes down to this-is there a better route available for a pipeline that threatens to pollute drinking water supplies and disturb sacred burial sites?
Frankly, that question should have been fully answered months ago, and it's clearly only getting investigated adequately now because of those hardy souls living in tents and yurts and other makeshift camp sites in Standing Rock willing to face a brutish Plains winter and unsympathetic state authorities. That they were joined in recent weeks by hundreds of military veterans who came to protect them and demonstrate solidarity with their cause underscores their moral authority. The nation can give proper respect to a group that's been collectively treated as second-class citizens for generations or it can side exclusively with a politically-connected energy company seeking to transport crude oil from the Bakken and Three Forks oil production areas.
Trump has indicated in the past that he is inclined to support the $3.7 billion pipeline project, and, during the campaign, he spoke often about a desire to help the fossil fuel industry. But the Standing Rock Sioux have also touched a nerve in this country among all those average Americans who, like those Carrier workers in Indiana, don't want to see their lives ruined by greedy corporations and indifferent bureaucrats. A populist president who won by promising to stand up for the Davids against the Goliaths might want to take note.
Resisting the idea that every ounce of fossil fuel available on this planet must be exploited isn't anti-American or anti-progress or anti-capitalism, it's pro-common sense. We can't continue to spew greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the air in the belief that there are no adverse consequences. The science on this subject is clear and convincing. Whether blocking (or more likely delaying) this particular pipeline ultimately slows extraction of oil in any meaningful way remains to be seen, but this much is certain: A far more costly day of reckoning is coming if the U.S. and other countries don't reduce harmful emissions from the use of fossil fuels.