Oklahoma and 12 other Republican-led states were allowed by a federal judge this week to intervene in a new lawsuit brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the Army Corps of Engineers in its continuing fight to close the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Iowa, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia were allowed to join after North Dakota sided this month with the Army Corps of Engineers.
“DAPL plays a vital role in ensuring the nation’s crops can come to market — not because DAPL itself transports agricultural products, but because every barrel of oil that DAPL transports is a barrel that does not take space in a truck or a train,” the states wrote in their filing.
They agreed with North Dakota’s claims that shutting down the pipeline would mean a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue and put thousands of jobs at risk. North Dakota also contends that if a federal court were to order such a shutdown, it would be in violation of the state’s right to regulate its own land and resources.
The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported the brief filed by Oklahoma and 12 other states stated the pipeline paid more than $100 million in property to counties in Iowa and another $33 million in property taxes to South Dakota counties since it began operations in 2017.
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