LaDuke, Winona

<div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke" class="external text" title="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona LaDuke" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Winona LaDuke</a> Native American activist. <a href="http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=348" class="external text" title="http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=348" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">article on native rice and GMO's.</a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kk_OPzOnME&feature=related" class="external text" title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kk OPzOnME&feature=related" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">2/10 talk</a> about food and energy (video). On <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evqCLIR7PM0&feature=related" class="external text" title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evqCLIR7PM0&feature=related" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Green economy</a> (video) 09. See also <a href="http://www.ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Category:Native_Americans" class="external text" title="http://www.ic.ucsc.edu/college8core/c8wiki/index.php/Category:Native Americans" rel="nofollow" style="margin: 0px; text-decoration: none; padding-right: 13px; line-height: 16.704px; background: url(" external.png="external.png" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgb="rgb">Native American page</a></div><div>=</div><div>=
921no link oIL COMPANY OFFICIAL OVERSEEING CRACKDOWN ON PIPELINE RESISTANCE CUT TEETH AT AMAZON AND EXXONIn the small world of corporate security, officials like Enbridge’s Troy Kirby take counterinsurgency practices from one megacompany to another.Alleen BrownAlleen BrownSeptember 17 2021,Policing the PipelinePart 15When the oil company Enbridge sought to build its Line 3 pipeline through northern Minnesota, it faced opposition from Indigenous-led water protectors. The company moved to coordinate with local police as they cracked down on the resistance.
 EXPAND ALL PARTS:

PART 15Oil Company Official Overseeing Crackdown on Pipeline Resistance Cut Teeth at Amazon and Exxon
PART 14Line 3 and a Week of Climate Catastrophe
PART 13Minnesota Law Enforcement Shared Intelligence on Protest Organizers With Pipeline Company
PART 12Minnesota Law Enforcement Agency Blocks Release of Public Records About Surveilling Pipeline Opponents
PART 11Minnesota Police Expected Pipeline Budget Boost to Fund New Weapons
PART 10Corporate Counterinsurgency Against Line 3 Pipeline Resistance
PART 9Indigenous Water Protectors Face Off With an Oil Company and Police Over a Minnesota Pipeline
PART 8Minnesota Sheriff Barricades Pipeline Resistance Camp’s Driveway
PART 7Low-Flying DHS Helicopter Showers Anti-Pipeline Protests With Debris
PART 6Local Cops Said Pipeline Company Had Influence Over Government Appointment
PART 5Minnesota Police Ready for Pipeline Resistance as Enbridge Seeks to Drill Under Rivers
PART 4Minnesota Police Want a Pipeline Company to Pay for Weapons Claimed as PPE
PART 3Minnesota Tells Pipeline Company Not to Run “Counterinsurgency” Against Protesters
PART 2How Police, Private Security, and Energy Companies Are Preparing for a New Pipeline Standoff
PART 1Tribal Liaison in Minnesota Pipeline Review Is Sidelined After Oil Company Complains to Governor
THE HEAD OF security for the oil transport company Enbridge built his résumé managing Exxon Mobil’s response to community protests in Nigeria and helping oversee Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center, a division that has monitored environmental groups and union organizers.Now, at Enbridge, Troy Kirby oversees efforts to combat a protest movement aimed at stopping construction of the company’s Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota. Enbridge’s security operation has drawn criticism for its efforts to influence the police response to the Indigenous-led movement, whose members are known as water protectors.“These are the people that specialize in the dark arts. Maybe it’s a bit more banal than we might imagine, but these are the spooks.”Enbridge’s response to the water protectors is part of a pattern of megacorporations working to quell resistance to their environmentally harmful activities. Enbridge’s close cooperation with police, including payments and intelligence sharing, has been deemed by academics and water protector critics as emblematic of corporate counterinsurgency — a suite of tactics, ranging from public relations campaigns to surveillance and support for armed force, designed to win over communities to controversial profit-making projects.“You have companies that have entire departments dedicated to making sure you stay in your place, that you don’t resist, that you don’t talk about it, and you most certainly don’t act on it,” said Alexander Dunlap, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, who has written extensively about how corporations utilize counterinsurgency tactics to quell movements against environmental degradation. “These are the people that specialize in the dark arts. Maybe it’s a bit more banal than we might imagine, but these are the spooks.”Policing the PipelineAn Enbridge spokesperson said the company supports the rights of individuals to protest lawfully and peacefully. “Security teams use a ‘people first’ concept to ensure public safety — their mission is to observe, respond, and report safety issues,” said Juli Kellner, a communications specialist for the company. Kellner did not make Kirby available for an interview.As this story was being reported, Kirby’s Amazon job description was deleted from his LinkedIn page.AS SOPHISTICATED CORPORATE security efforts have burgeoned, lucrative positions lure specialists from company to company, linking together the practices of megacorporations. Kirby, for his part, started at Enbridge in 2019 after a three-year stint as Amazon’s head of corporate security throughout the Americas, according to LinkedIn. Part of his role included overseeing the online giant’s Global Security Operations Center. Internal Amazon documents dated to the year Kirby left, obtained by Vice, provide clues. According to the report, security personnel with the center used Facebook and Instagram to monitor environmental groups as well as union organizers.In Poland, operatives working for the private security company Pinkerton were sent to an Amazon warehouse to investigate reports of employee misconduct, Vice reported. Pinkerton got its start in the late 19th century, using undercover operatives and agents provocateurs to bust unions. The firm is now a subsidiary of the private security giant Securitas — one of the companies providing security for Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota.Before Amazon, Kirby spent 16 years doing security work for Exxon Mobil. For at least four years, he worked for Exxon in Nigeria — where there is a history of energy company complicity in human rights abuses. During his time in Nigeria, Kirby was an adviser on “strategic security countermeasures,” which involved managing so-called crises, including pirate attacks and kidnapping, as well as “community protests,” according to a section of his LinkedIn page that has since been deleted.As in Minnesota, the work in Nigeria included collaborating closely with public agencies. Kirby’s LinkedIn page said he “Established a Nigerian based security network with private and public sector security leaders” and was involved in “Oversight of host government security forces.”The Exxon Mobil security operation was heavily militarized and focused in part on Exxon’s offshore oil operations. Kirby described designing a “Security Maritime Operations center including a fleet of 17 military-grade security vessels.”FOR CRITICS OF corporate counterinsurgency, Kirby stands as just one example of corporate officials steeped in highly militarized security efforts abroad bringing those practices back home.“To corporate entities like Energy Transfer and Enbridge, water protectors and land defenders are perceived as ‘security threats’ endangering shareholders’ profits.”“It’s telling, but not at all surprising, that the head of security for Enbridge has trained in the so-called Third World to deal with high-stakes security issues impacting corporations in Africa and the Americas,” said Natali Segovia, an attorney and the legal director for the Water Protector Legal Collective. The collective is representing opponents of Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access pipeline, who argue that aggressive law enforcement tactics used near the Standing Rock reservation were influenced by the contract security firm TigerSwan, run by special operations military veterans. “To corporate entities like Energy Transfer and Enbridge, water protectors and land defenders are perceived as ‘security threats’ endangering shareholders’ profits,” Segovia said.Kirby appears to have put some of the lessons he learned with Exxon Mobil in Nigeria into practice on Enbridge‘s project in Minnesota. Under Kirby’s watch, Enbridge pays law enforcement for pipeline-related police activity. The company’s security team members have set up trainings for local law enforcement and have been invited to attend public safety officials’ intelligence sharing meetings, where information on individual pipeline opponents has been discussed.[RelatedMinnesota Law Enforcement Shared Intelligence on Protest Organizers With Pipeline Company]In advance of Line 3 pipeline construction, Kirby planned meetings with local law enforcement officers to discuss Enbridge’s approach to responding to opposition. When a local sheriff expressed concern over whether law enforcement agencies would be reimbursed for pipeline-related expenses, Kirby reassured him that the security head had influence over the appointment of the public official who would approve reimbursement requests, according to the sheriff. As the sheriff recalled in an email, Kirby told him “he would be involved to ensure we are taken care of, one way or another.”It’s Kirby’s colleague Brian Aldrich, Enbridge’s Line 3 security lead, who has worked more routinely on the ground in Minnesota. Aldrich, according to an email sent to state officials, served with the Marines before working for large security firms including Control Risks and Gavin DeBecker and Associates. He also has an Amazon connection — providing personal security for the corporate giant’s founder and executive chair, Jeff Bezos himself.=</div><div>=</div><div>
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</div><div>For seven years, we have fought this project in the regulatory process of Minnesota, and despite almost 70,000 people testifying against the pipeline, and the clear need to deny this project on environmental, social and economic grounds, Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz approved the final permits for the pipeline. This leaves tribes, Honor the Earth, and citizen groups to uphold the interests of the water and wild rice in Court. (We are, however, joined in our appeal by another state agency- the Minnesota Department of Commerce seeks to overturn the pipeline approvals as not meeting the requirements for a certificate of need, nor meeting route permit requirements.) The appeals will grow, as will the resistance. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.emails.sierraclub.org/?qs=5362845fb2d9873055fc176191dfa91b8ee69f7b13976a160ca1a9af576c9ea19f3ec5633c6ceed94f1ac9be38a7ce19ee071fb80280d277" title="But we need your support right now to stand for our water. We stand with our lawyers, and we stand with our people. Please make your gift to now help our cause." style="">But we need your support right now to stand for our water. We stand with our lawyers, and we stand with our people. Please make your gift to now help our cause.</a> It's ironic that one day after Minnesota Governor Tim Walz approved the final state permits for Line 3, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer revoked the 1953 easement that allows Enbridge to operate pipelines through the Straits of Mackinac. Governor Whitmer, acted under the state's public trust doctrine, which requires state authorities to protect the Great Lakes. The pipeline in question, known as Line 5, has been in operation since the 1950s. It carries the oil which would move in Line 3. “Enbridge has imposed on the people of Michigan an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes that could devastate our economy and way of life,” Whitmer said in a statement. “That's why we're taking action now, and why I will continue to hold accountable anyone who threatens our Great Lakes and fresh water.” Two different Governors, same company.</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> = </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://grist.org/climate/two-new-climate-lawsuits-give-big-oil-the-tobacco-treatment/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://grist.org/climate/two-new-climate-lawsuits-give-big-oil-the-tobacco-treatment/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2015, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">launched an investigation</a> into what exactly ExxonMobil knew about climate change decades earlier and whether it covered up its findings. The following year, Virgin Islands attorney general Claude Walker <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2801453-CEI-Subpoena-From-USVI-AG-Claude-Walker-April-7.html" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">issued a subpoena</a> to Exxon as part of an investigation into whether the company had violated racketeering laws by misrepresenting its knowledge of climate science. Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey <a href="https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/10/op/ma-exxon-cid-.pdf" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">launched her own probe</a> into the company’s dealings shortly after. The investigations paved the way for a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">flood of lawsuits</a> from <a href="http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2017/20171220_docket-17CV03243-complaint.pdf" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">cities</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/rhode-island-files-historic-lawsuit-against-21-big-oil-companies-2583480560.html" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">states</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/12/04/671996313/fishermen-sue-big-oil-for-its-role-in-climate-change" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">other entities and groups</a> against many of the world’s largest oil companies.</div>These legal actions have made a range of specific allegations, from <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/24102019/massachusetts-sues-exxon-climate-change-investor-fraud-misleading-advertising-healey" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">consumer fraud</a> to <a href="https://www.dailycamera.com/2018/06/20/boulder-county-and-boulder-add-civil-conspiracy-to-climate-change-lawsuit/" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">civil conspiracy</a>, but the fundamental claim underpinning all of them is that Big Oil knew about the dangers posed by climate change and lied about them in order to keep digging up, refining, and selling its product.ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and other major oil companies have put up a fierce, and largely successful, fight in court over to avoid getting pinned for their role in the climate crisis. As oil companies racked up <a href="https://grist.org/article/heres-why-the-bay-area-lost-its-lawsuit-against-big-oil/" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">win</a> after <a href="https://time.com/5767438/climate-lawsuit-kids/" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">win for in 2018 and 2019,</a> it seemed like the climate lawsuit was doomed. Most recently, a judge <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10122019/exxon-ruling-climate-investor-fraud-new-york-case-impact" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">ruled in favor of Exxon</a> in the New York case, which alleged investor fraud, in December.But two new lawsuits from Minnesota and Washington, D.C., hint that climate lawsuits against Big Oil might be mounting a comeback.The new lawsuits mirror <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/massachusetts-can-keep-exxon-suit-in-state-court-judge-says?sref=wINQCNXe" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Massachusetts’ ongoing lawsuit</a> against Exxon, which alleges that the oil giant violated the state’s consumer and investor protection law. In Minnesota on Wednesday, state attorney general Keith Ellison <a href="https://kstp.com/news/live-video-minnesota-attorney-general-ellison-files-lawsuit-against-exxonmobil-koch-industries-american-petroleum-climate-change/5770393/" style="font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">announced a lawsuit</a> against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association, that alleges that these entities have deceived consumers about the negative impacts of fossil fuel consumption and climate change. At the press conference announcing the suit, Ellison held up an internal ExxonMobil engineering document from 1979 that acknowledged that the company knew that climate change was caused by fossil fuel combustion. “They knew CO2 was going to go up because of burning fossil fuels, they knew it would cause climate change, and they knew that there would be negative catastrophic effects to the world and to Minnesota,” Ellison said.The case bears similarity to a past case brought by Minnesota against tobacco companies: In 1998, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/09/us/tobacco-companies-settle-a-suit-with-minnesota-for-6.5-billion.html#:_{:text=The%20first%20state%20lawsuit%20against,jurors%20were%20hearing%20closing%20arguments.&text=The%20settlement%20was%20also%20the,which%20will%20receive%20%24469%20million.}" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Minnesota settled a lawsuit against the tobacco industry</a> under similar allegations of consumer fraud, resulting in the creation of a $6.5 billion fund that has been used for <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/05/08/minnesotas-landmark-tobacco-settlement-is-20-years-old" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">public health programs and anti-smoking campaigns</a>. Doug Blanke, director of the Public Health Law Center at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, oversaw the consumer protection division of the Minnesota attorney general’s office at the time of the ‘98 suit. “The lies of the tobacco industry … echo through every page of today’s lawsuit, because the alleged actions of these defendants are ripped straight from the playbook of the tobacco industry,” Blanke said at the press conference announcing the lawsuit.The press conference announcing the Minnesota lawsuit emphasized the disproportionate effects of climate change on Black and Indigenous communities. Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabekwe activist and the director of the Native environmental nonprofit Honor the Earth, emphasized the impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities. “This last year was a very hard year on a lot of our rice all across the north country,” LaDuke said. “They’re expecting a 25 percent increase in these heavy rain events over the next years. That’s going to be disastrous to our rice. Our rice is who we are, that’s who we are as people.”The <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/DC-v-Exxon-BP-Chevron-Shell-Filed-Complaint.pdf" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">D.C. lawsuit</a>, which was announced by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine on Thursday, alleges that BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell knowingly misled District consumers about the role their products play in exacerbating climate change for the past five decades. “Defendants continue to mislead D.C. consumers to this day,” says the complaint, which was filed in D.C. Superior Court. Racine brought the suit against four of the world’s largest oil companies under the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act, a statute that bans businesses from engaging in deceptive trade practices and misleading consumers. “These companies were not simply irresponsible in their reckless pursuit of profit,” Racine said on a press call on Thursday. “Their deceptive advertisement and misleading claims violate the D.C. consumer protection law.”Deputy attorney general Kathleen Konopka said Racine’s office wasn’t aware of the Minnesota lawsuit until it was filed on Wednesday. But she noted that D.C.’s lawsuit echoes some of the environmental injustice claims brought by the Minnesota suit. “There are indications that certain vulnerable populations will be more susceptible to rising temperatures and climate change,” she said on the call, “particularly in low-income communities and particularly our seniors.” If successful, the D.C. lawsuit would prohibit the four oil companies from engaging in what Racine’s office considers deceptive advertising campaigns. The companies would also have to pay civil penalties and provide financial relief to consumers in D.C.William Boyd, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, says the two new lawsuits might get more traction than past attempts. “These are broad consumer protection statutes, and the facts that are alleged in the complaints are pretty damning for the big oil companies in the sense that they show a systematic effort to suppress and divert climate science and to mislead the public about the impacts of climate change,” said Boyd. Oil companies did “essentially what the tobacco companies did in funding and supporting a whole campaign through a whole network of organizations to essentially mislead the public,” Boyd said.In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/dc-attorney-general-sues-oil-and-gas-companies-alleging-industry-misled-public-about-climate-change/2020/06/25/7b633584-b705-11ea-a8da-693df3d7674a_story.html" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">statements to the Washington Post</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-oil/minnesota-sues-exxon-koch-and-api-for-being-deceptive-on-climate-change-idUSKBN23V2XY" style="outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; line-height: inherit; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; border-bottom: 0.0625rem solid rgb(7, 96, 126); transition: border-color 0.15s ease-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none !important;">Reuters</a>, an ExxonMobil spokesperson dismissed both the Minnesota and the D.C. lawsuit, saying that the suits are part of a “coordinated, politically motivated campaign against energy companies.”Boyd thinks more lawsuits could be in store for Big Oil. “I suspect many other states could be or are already thinking about similar actions,” Boyd said. “I think the overarching litigation strategy here is to find a legal theory that gets traction, and then others can jump on board.”If the attorneys general succeed, the cost for the oil companies could be high. Ellison said that the settlement could be in the range of the state’s 1998 $6.5 billion settlement with the tobacco industry. “If you put it all together you’re looking at claims that could move into the many billions of dollars fairly quickly,” said Boyd. It’s unclear whether these lawsuits will actually achieve their intended goal. But one thing is obvious: cities and states aren’t giving up pinning the blame for climate fallout on major oil companies just yet.<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div></div><div>The records raise concerns that law enforcement agencies are preparing to stifle any protests even before they've begun, said Alex Rate, legal director of the ACLU in Montana."What we're concerned about is the surveillance and crackdown on peaceful protesters," Rate said. The records suggest law enforcement officers were given anti-terrorism and social media trainings in preparation for anticipated construction of Keystone XL and any related protests. "I think it would come as news to many people that the government is doing this to prepare for environmental protests about legitimate issues," he said.The group submitted public records requests to six federal offices and agencies in January, but received only a small number of records in response so far. Some agencies have said they have no records matching the request, while others have yet to respond. The Army Corps of Engineers provided some records but withheld others, saying they were exempt from disclosure because they would interfere with a law enforcement proceeding, among other reasons....---https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05092018/standing-rock-tribe-dapl-dakota-access-pipeline-oil-spill-risk-report-army-corps
<div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;">U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is defending its claim that the Dakota Access pipeline has no significant environmental impact, but it issued only a brief summary of its court-ordered reassessment while keeping the full analysis confidential.The delay in releasing the full report, including crucial details about potential oil spills, has incensed the Standing Rock Tribe, whose reservation sits a half-mile downstream from where the pipeline crosses the Missouri River.The tribe said the Army Corps is stonewalling, and it said it will continue to oppose the pipeline. Meanwhile, oil continues to flow through the pipeline two years after opponents set up a desperate encampment to try to block the project.  In June 2017, a federal judge <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14062017/dakota-access-pipeline-environmental-justice-review-standing-rock-court-ruling" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">ordered the Corps to reassess</a> the potential environmental harm posed by the pipeline, saying it had failed to "adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline's effects are likely to be highly controversial."The Corps responded in an Aug. 31 memo saying it sought additional information from Energy Transfer Partners, which owns and operates the Dakota Access pipeline, as well as from Standing Rock and other tribes, but did not find "significant new circumstance[s] or information relevant to environmental concerns."Tribal leaders blasted the reassessment and could choose to challenge it in court."The Army Corps' decision to rubber-stamp its illegal and flawed permit for DAPL will not stand," Mike Faith, Jr., chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,said in a statement. "A federal judge declared the DAPL permits to be illegal, and ordered the Corps to take a fresh look at the risks of an oil spill and the impacts to the Tribe and its Treaty rights. That is not what the Army Corps did."The tribe says it hasn't been able to view the Corps' full reassessment. Instead, the Corps released a two-page memo that mentions a larger analysis of potential environmental impacts, but that report is undergoing a confidentiality review prior to release. The Army Corps and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to requests for additional information."It's dismaying that they are keeping that confidential, because what they released doesn't tell us anything," Jan Hasselman of Earthjustice, an attorney representing the Standing Rock tribe, said. "We all need to see what's in that [report] before any decisions are made."<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">Memo Fails to Address Oil Spill Risk</h3>A key omission from the Corps' memo was detailed technical information about a worst case scenario spill from the pipeline into the Missouri River and the risks such a spill would pose to members of the Standing Rock reservation, Hasselman said. The reservation is just downstream from where the pipeline crosses the Missouri River, the tribe's water supply. The tribe says it has struggled to get <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/dakota-access-pipeline-ruling-standing-rock-emergency-spill-response-plan-keystone" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">detailed information about potential spills and spill response plans</a> from Energy Transfer Partners.The company did not respond to a request for comment.If the tribe concludes that the Army Corps' recent reassessment of environmental impacts posed by the pipeline was insufficient, and they decide to challenge the findings in court, there is still a chance they could stop the pipeline, though the odds of such an outcome are slim."Once the pipeline is constructed and the oil is flowing, it's very difficult for courts to have the stomach to overturn decisions that resulted in that outcome," said Sarah Krakoff, a professor of Native American law at the University of Colorado Law School. "This administration won't last forever and when there is different direction from above to the Army Corps and other agencies, then maybe the decisions about the pipeline can change."<h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;">Tribes Are Challenging Other Pipelines, Too</h3>The recent memo by the Army Corps comes amid recent successes and capitulations by other tribes challenging pipelines elsewhere in North America.On Aug. 30, First Nations in British Columbia won a lawsuit against the Canadian government and the Trans Mountain Pipeline company that halted the proposed $7.4 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which would ship tar sands crude oil from Alberta to British Columbia. The court determined that the Canadian government's environmental impact and public interest assessment for the project was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4801795-Fed-Court-of-Appeal.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">flawed and failed to consult Indigenous peoples.</a>On Aug. 31, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Minnesota signed an agreement with pipeline company Enbridge and accepted an unspecified sum to allow the company to construct its proposed Line 3 pipeline through the tribe's reservation.The Band was faced with having the pipeline skirt their reservation or pass directly through it, something Indigenous advocates say was a choice between two evils.Prior to the agreement, the Band, along with other Minnesota tribes, had challenged a favorable environmental assessment of the pipeline by the state's Public Utilities Commission. The Fond du Lac Band dropped its legal challenge to the environmental assessment as part of the agreement, according to Frank Bibeau, legal counsel for Native environmental advocacy group Honor the Earth."You shouldn't have to trade your ecosystem to have quality of life and decent infrastructure, and that is basically what tribes are being forced to do," Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth's Executive Director, said.  </div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;">PUBLISHED UNDER:</label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/oiltar-sands" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">OIL/TAR SANDS</a></div> <div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/activism" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">ACTIVISM</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/dakota-access-pipeline" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE</a></div></div></div></div>=</div><div></div><div>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke</div><div>
</div><div>Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,1996" title="United States presidential election, 1996" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1996</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,2000" title="United States presidential election, 2000" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2000</a>, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States" title="Green Party of the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Green Party of the United States</a>, on a ticket headed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader" title="Ralph Nader" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ralph Nader</a>.A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States" title="Native Americans in the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Native American</a> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojibwe" title="Ojibwe" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ojibwe</a> ancestry, she is the executive director of both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Earth_Land_Recovery_Project" title="White Earth Land Recovery Project" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">White Earth Land Recovery Project</a>, which she founded at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Earth_Reservation" title="White Earth Reservation" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">White Earth Reservation</a> in 1989, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_the_Earth" title="Honor the Earth" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Honor the Earth</a>, which she founded with Indigo Girls <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Ray" title="Amy Ray" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Amy Ray</a> and<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Saliers" title="Emily Saliers" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Emily Saliers</a> in 1993. Born in Los Angeles and raised in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashland,_Oregon" title="Ashland, Oregon" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Ashland, Oregon</a>, she was enrolled in the tribe at an early age, but did not live at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Earth_Indian_Reservation" title="White Earth Indian Reservation" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">White Earth Indian Reservation</a> until 1982. She started work there after college as a principal of a high school. LaDuke became an activist in Anishinaabe issues, helping found the Indigenous Women's Network in 1985. She became involved in continuing struggles to regain reservation land lost since in the 19th century. The WELRP holds land in a conservation trust for the benefit of the tribe.<div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249);"><div id="toctitle" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><h2 style="margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; display: inline; line-height: 1.3; background: none;">Contents</h2>  [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#" id="togglelink" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">hide</a>] </div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Early_life_and_education" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">1Early life and education</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Career" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2Career</a><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Political_career" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">2.1Political career</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#White_Earth_Recovery_Project" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">3White Earth Recovery Project</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Honor_the_Earth" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">4Honor the Earth</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Books.2C_films.2C_and_media" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">5Books, films, and media</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Legacy_and_honors" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">6Legacy and honors</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Marriage_and_family" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">7Marriage and family</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#See_also" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">8See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#References" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">9References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#Further_reading" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">10Further reading</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke#External_links" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">11External links</a></li></ul></div></div><div>==</div>