Dakota Access asks court to reverse decision requiring environmental review

The Dakota Access Pipeline is asking the Supreme Court to review a lower court determination finding that it needs additional environmental review. 

At the start of the year, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision that the federal government needed to conduct a rigorous environmental review called an Environmental Impact Statement for the pipeline. 

The appeals court also upheld a decision to vacate a permit for the now-operational pipeline, while the review is conducted. 

In its new filing, the company asks the high court to consider whether the appeals court was wrong to vacate the permit under environmental laws. It also takes issue with the appeals court’s assertion that it was judging whether the federal government had “convinced the court that it has materially addressed and resolved serious objections to its analysis.”

Dakota Access, in the new filing, also asks the high court to weigh whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which issued the approval, needed to also “‘resolve’ those criticisms to the court’s satisfaction.”

In the meantime, the pipeline will continue to operate without the permit, after the Biden administration and a federal court declined to shut it down. 

A Justice Department lawyer said at the time that whether or not to shut down the pipeline was a matter of “continuing discretion,” and, in its new filing, the company argued that the court decision leaves the pipeline “at a significant risk of being shut down.”

This is not the first time the company has asked the Supreme Court to review the case, previously trying to get the court to take a look at it in April.