TO VICTORY! THE UNRAVELING OF THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
Photography by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
The Unraveling of the Keystone XL Pipeline
June 11, 2021 | Native Children’s Survival
On Wednesday, June 9, 2021, TransCanada (TC Energy) confirmed it will terminate its Keystone XL Pipeline. The TC Energy confirmation came after U.S. President Joe Biden revoked the Keystone XL Pipeline permit in January 2021.
For more than a decade, Water Protectors and allies stood in solidarity on the frontlines of an indomitable Indigenous Movement to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline dead in its path. Now we must ensure those facing trumped-up charges for standing against the Keystone XL Pipeline are not railroaded into America's broken justice system.
The demise of the Keystone XL Pipeline is a turning point. If TC Energy Corporation sees the wisdom in abandoning environmental genocide in the homelands and territories of Indigenous Nations and Peoples, others can too.
Energy Transfer Partners and its billionaire chairman and chief executive officer, Kelcy Lee Warren, would be wise to heed the lessons learned from the unraveling of TC Energy Corporation's Keystone XL Pipeline. Long before a U.S. federal judge ruled Warren's Dakota Access Pipeline was illegal, Lakota youth, thousands of water protectors, and more than 500 Native Nations knew. Now, everybody knows.
Rather than fumbling false statements to demonize Water Protectors like: "These are violent people and, and, and, they just want to stop fossil fuels." Warren would be better served with a natural green vision and not with the color of money. Meanwhile, our human rights, treaty rights, and Mother Earth rights were violated at Standing Rock. Water protectors were beaten, poisoned, and imprisoned. At the same time, Warren's pipeline was built, and his dirty oil flowed without a legal permit.
Moreover, without the "Free, Prior, and Informed Consent" from the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, Warren, and his partners in crime, violated a host of U.S. federal laws, international laws, and human rights instruments to build their pipeline across the homeland, treaty land, and territories of the Oceti Sakowin. These violations include the Treaty of Fort Laramie, U.S. Executive Order 13175, "Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments," and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
This week, thousands of water protectors gathered in Minnesota to stop L3 — an oil sands pipeline owned by the Canadian company Enbridge. From the headwaters of the Mississippi to Lake Superior, Enbridge is attempting to build a new pipeline through Anishinaabe territory despite being responsible for the largest inland oil spill in the U.S. The $7.5 billion Line 3 is the biggest project in Enbridge's history and would become one of the largest crude oil pipelines in the world. What's scarier is that Enbridge is planning to use L3 to carry the dirtiest kind of toxic fuel, tar sands crude oil. If built, L3 would carry up to 915,000 barrels of this life-threatening tar sands crude oil daily. This is not just a threat to Indigenous communities, rivers, lakes, and sacred sites; it's a threat to all life in its wake.
Rest assured, the Indigenous-led frontline resistance will persist through nonviolent direct action until big business abandons the practice of ecocide and cleans up their mess. We have Peoples Power! Together we can kick the fossil foolish habit and move into a time of healing — a time of clean, safe, renewable energy. Now and for the coming generations.
In the Spirit of Water Protectors, join us in resisting the forces that threaten Indigenous Peoples, Mother Earth, and All Our Relations.