The Keystone XL Pipeline: When Native Activism Conflicts with the U.S. Chamber’s Lobbying
By Kendall Chappell, April 14th, 2022
Despite the Keystone XL pipeline posing a serious threat to several Native American communities, the Chamber’s focus was on preserving their economic benefits.
The Keystone XL Pipeline was an oil pipeline system planned to run throughout the northern United States and southern Canada. Its route intercepted Native American land and posed a threat to their water supply. It was first initiated in 2010, and Indigenous activists protested for a decade against its construction. The pipeline was also created to process tar sands oil, a process that creates over 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions more than crude oil pipelines over 50 years.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce fought hard for a decade to get the XL Pipeline approved. The Chamber has taken to using its private businesses and litigation in making its case for why the XL Pipeline is a necessity. Throughout those 10 years, Indigenous groups used several means (including legal suits and protests) to actively oppose the Pipeline, countering many of the energy groups’ own pro-pipeline actions to demand government action.
We at Change the Chamber would like to both recognize the efforts of various Indigenous tribes mentioned below in preserving the environment and call on companies to have similar care for environmental justice and protection. Protecting the environment and preserving historic lands should not be a ten-year battle.
The Keystone XL Pipeline’s Start: 2011-2013
In 2011, the Institute for 21st Century Energy (within the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) started the Partnership to Fuel America, with one of its main focuses being to support the XL Pipeline. This partnership brought together different U.S. businesses and industries to push North American energy in various forms. They used 720 Strategies, a high-price public relations agency, to help frame their message and recruit members. For just counseling and media contact services, not including producing or running advertisements, the firm cost over $5 million in 2020. The Chamber’s large budget revealed its commitment to the approval of the XL Pipeline.
At the same time, the National Congress of American Indians published a resolution against the XL pipeline, stating that “the U.S. government to take aggressive measures to work towards sustainable energy solutions that include clean alternative energy and improving energy efficiency,” and “reduce its reliance on the world’s dirtiest and most environmentally destructive form of oil – the ‘tar sands’”.
In February of 2012, the Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council demanded action from the U.S. government, specifically directing it to “honor the promises of the United States made through the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties by prohibiting the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline and any future projects from entering and destroying our land without our consent.” The Council involved several Sioux tribes; specifically, the Brulé, Oglala, Miniconjou, Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Cuthead, Two Kettle, Sans Arcs, Santee, and Arapaho. This was just the start of demands directed to the government regarding the pipeline on both sides.
In 2013, just a few years after the pipeline was commissioned and shortly after President Obama delayed its approval, numerous oil and gas businesses, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter sent to President Obama in which they urged him to approve the pipeline. Despite evidence to the contrary, they claimed that it would have “limited adverse environmental impacts” and “provide 20,000 jobs.”
The Battle to Preserve Native Lands: 2014-2017
In 2014, the Chamber further released a press release, where the president and CEO of the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy said “As we have for more than six years now, the U.S. Chamber stands strongly with the vast majority of the American people, the business community, and elected officials from both parties at the federal, state, and local levels in support of the Keystone XL pipeline.”
Native protest and action continued into 2015, proving to be a formidable power against Chamber-associated interest groups. In 2021 alone, tribes sent 175 pages of letters to the Department of the Interior with concerns regarding this project. In these letters, the Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association wrote of “thousands of sacred and cultural resources” vital to their communities being put at risk due to this pipeline. The Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota further said it “fully and completely opposes the approval” of the pipeline. Several other tribes also wrote letters, including the Northern Arapaho Tribe and the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. The Obama Administration agreed with these Tribes, as just a few months later they rejected the pipeline, citing environmental concerns as a primary reason.
In 2016, TransCanada sued the Obama Administration for its refusal to grant the company a Presidential permit for the pipeline. The Chamber of Commerce filed an amicus brief with the National Association of Manufacturers in support of TransCanada and the XL Pipeline, stating that Congress has the ultimate ability to approve projects such as these, not the executive branch. An amicus brief is filed by parties who aren’t involved in a legal case, but who may have arguments for one side and a vested interest in the case’s results. The Chamber has a history of filing amicus briefs to push support of environmentally-damaging projects. They similarly filed an amicus brief in favor of the PennEast Pipeline, which also planned to run through lands with connections to Native American tribes.
By mid-2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had begun approving portions of the pipeline. During this time the Standing Rock Tribe sued the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers for failing to consult tribe leaders when approving this pipeline, as well as for violating the National Historic Preservation Act by not taking into account the risk the pipeline poses to cultural sites. This suit was later dismissed by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who claimed that the U.S. Government “likely complied” with the requirement to consult the tribe.
In 2016, protests at Standing Rock also began, with some turning into violent clashes between security and protesters. Despite being pepper-sprayed by private security and bitten by guard dogs, the protesters continued to make their voices heard throughout 2016 and 2017. The Standing Rock protests garnered national attention and media coverage, bringing public awareness to the pipeline that was not as present previously.
Despite this, President Trump was insistent on passing the pipeline when he took office in 2017. When Trump approved the pipeline after years of standstill, the Chamber’s President Thomas Donohue embraced the project as getting “the green light it has long deserved.”
The Pipeline’s End: 2018-2021
Trump’s action pushed the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian Community to take action similar to that taken by TransCanada just years before. In 2018, they sued the Trump Administration (with the help of the Native American Rights Fund) for “numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL Pipeline permitting process,” such as the National Environmental Policy Act. The suit claimed the administration did not pay due respect to the pipeline’s environmental impact, as required by NEPA. This suit helped to slow the process down, with U.S. District Judge Brian Morris blocking the pipeline’s construction in late 2018, but the injunction was ultimately dissolved by the following June. This was a result of President Trump’s use of a presidential permit, bypassing the court case and making it irrelevant. The permit allowed the Trump Administration to forgo NEPA and continue with the pipeline regardless of impact.
The use of this permit was praised by the Chamber of Commerce, which stated that Trump “wants to create jobs and advance U.S. energy security,” things the pipeline is claimed to do. Despite this appearance of progress, the pipeline was not to continue for long. When Biden was elected in 2020, he promised to reverse this decision and end the pipeline, once and for all. This desire became a reality as soon as he took office, and Biden wasted no time, revoking the permit on day one.
When Biden announced plans to revoke its permit the president of the Chamber’s Global Energy Institute, Marty Durbin, issued a statement where he said “the Chamber opposes President Biden’s action,” as “the pipeline … is already under construction and has cleared countless legal and environmental hurdles.” He continues that this is a “politically motivated” decision “not grounded in science,” which “will harm consumers,” “put thousands of Americans in the building trades out of work,” and “impede the safe and efficient transport of oil."
When the pipeline was officially terminated, with the parent company of TC Energy choosing to end its bid and stop the project itself, Marty Durbin continued that “TC Energy’s decision to terminate the Keystone XL pipeline project is understandable, but necessary only because of the policy errors of the administration.” He further said that “the American people will lose the most by not having access to affordable and reliable energy that would have been safely and efficiently transported by the pipeline” and “the opportunity cost for thousands of American workers, some of which already have lost their jobs on this project, and the communities along the pipeline route that would have received millions in tax revenue to support their schools and infrastructure.” He finally ended by invoking our relationship with Canada, saying “this episode is also a black mark for our relationship.”
Christopher Guith, the Global Energy Institute’s Senior Vice President, further called it a “bad decision at the worst possible time.”
The Evolution of Public Opinion
Since 2013, as both awareness and climate activism grew substantially, support for the pipeline diminished. The below graph demonstrates the changes in public opinion on the pipeline from 2013 on.
Despite the XL pipeline posing a serious threat to several Native American communities, the Chamber’s focus was on cost and jobs. While they claim to support environmental justice, the Chamber’s record has shown otherwise, and this is just one example of their ardent support for fossil fuel interests.
The pressure Indigenous organizations placed on the pipeline's supporters and the publicity it garnered forced the Biden administration to hold to his word. Biden has been praised for ending the pipeline, with Faith Spotted Eagle, the founder of the Braveheart Alliance, calling it “an act of courage and restorative justice”. However, if Indigenous voices had not refused to be silenced and continued to find ways to delay the project, the Biden administration may not have recognized it as a key issue, or even if they did, it may have been too late to stop it when Biden took office in January of 2021.