The Last-Ditch Attempt to Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline

Legally, the Dakota Access pipeline is closer to completion than it has been in months.

In his first three weeks in office, President Donald Trump bucked norms about executive propriety and canceled an environmental-impact review ordered by the Obama administration. On Wednesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the final easement for the pipeline’s developer, Energy Transfer Partners, to begin construction beneath Lake Oahe, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

The U.S. Army Corps’s move was designed to speed things up. Normally, any easement issued by the federal government would require a two-week waiting period, but this time the Army Corps specifically waived that pause.

So in what will likely be their final attempt to block the mega-infrastructure project, the