Judge asks Army Corps to weigh in on DAPL shutdown

A federal judge is asking the US Army Corps of Engineers to take a position on whether to shut down the 570,000 b/d Dakota Access crude pipeline (DAPL) in a case surrounding the line's environmental permitting.

US District Court judge James Boasberg asked the Army Corps to give its position "if it has one," by 3 May, according to a court filing today. The judge also asked the agency to give its latest estimate for finishing a new court-mandated environmental review of the pipeline.

The Army Corps, under the administration of President Joe Biden, earlier this month told the US District Court for the District of Columbia that it would not immediately move to shut DAPL despite a federal court ruling that vacated a key easement and ordered the new environmental review. The inaction upset environmental groups and Native American tribes and put the decision squarely on Boasberg, who is weighing a motion to shut the line.

Boasberg could issue a ruling as soon as next week.

Meanwhile, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week denied a petition from pipeline owner Energy Transfer to rehear the case.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court in January upheld a portion of Boasberg's court ruling last year that ordered the new corps review and also threw out the easement for DAPL to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota.

Energy Transfer was seeking a rehearing before the full court of appeals, which has 15 judges. The company argued that the January appeals court decision conflicted with rulings by other federal courts, including the US Supreme Court.

DAPL moves Bakken crude to Patoka, Illinois, where it connects to another Energy Transfer pipeline to Nederland, Texas. It is the largest crude pipeline out of the Bakken shale.

A pipeline shutdown would shift large volumes of crude onto railcars and alternate pipelines.

The underlying lawsuit brought by the Standing Rock Sioux and other Native American groups contends that the corps' original environmental review failed to adequately study certain issues related to potential oil spills from the pipeline.

The initial start-up of DAPL was delayed for months in 2016 and 2017 amid large protests and regulatory delays. Since it began operations in June 2017, the line has expanded amid record-high North Dakota production prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Eunice Bridges