The judge who ruled the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down next month won’t change his mind.
As POLITICO reported, the Dakota Access Pipeline won’t get immediate relief from the order issued on Monday by a federal judge requiring that the pipeline be emptied of oil within 30 days while the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a court-ordered environmental review. The same judge on Tuesday denied the developer’s plea for an urgent stay.
But Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said he would soon set a schedule for considering developer Energy Transfer Partners’ request to allow the pipeline to remain in operation while the company pursues an appeal , which it swiftly filed on Monday evening to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Energy Transfer Partners says that shutting down the pipeline requires “a number of time-consuming and expensive steps” that take more than 30 days.
The order from Boasberg on Monday marked a major setback to the U.S. pipeline industry, coming less than 24 hours after backers of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline announced they’d cancel that natural gas project after years of legal challenges.
Source: POLITICO