Source: Pacific Press / Getty
In a 91-page ruling issued Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg found the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline—halted by President Obama shortly before he left office and later reauthorized by the Trump administration—to be in violation of the law.
“This is a major victory for the Tribe and we commend the courts for upholding the law and doing the right thing,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement, according to Earthjustice.org. “The previous administration painstakingly considered the impacts of this pipeline, and President Trump hastily dismissed these careful environmental considerations in favor of political and personal interests. We applaud the courts for protecting our laws and regulations from undue political influence and will ask the Court to shut down pipeline operations immediately.”
According to Boasberg’s ruling, though the Army Corps of Engineers—which oversees the evaluation and issuing of the pipeline’s permits according to the New York Daily News—”substantially complied” with federal environmental laws, it “did not 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.”
Whether or not pipeline operations will be stopped “will be the subject of further briefing,” Boasberg stated in his ruling.
Hearings are reportedly scheduled to begin June 21.
