Minnesota PUC Refuses to Adequately Consider Cultural Impacts of Line 3 Tar Sands Pipeline

Honor the Earth Hosts First Daughter and the Black Snake Film Screening

CALLAWAY, Minnesota (Tuesday, February 6th, 2018)- Honor the Earth, is partnering with The Historic Holmes Theatre located in Detroit Lakes to host a screening of national award winning First Daughter and the Black Snake on February 28th, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. $20 per person or $30 per two people. Dinner with traditional Anishinaabe foods will be served followed by film and discussion.

For Immediate Release: BNP Paribas Bank stops funding tar sands, fracking -- Enbridge to lose $1.24B in corporate lending 

On October 11, BNP Paribas, the 2nd largest bank in France and 4th largest corporate lender to Enbridge LLC, announced it will cease all funding of companies whose primary business is tar sands, fracking, or Arctic drilling. The news comes on the tail of several other banks divesting from the project level financing of Energy Transfer Partnership, the company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.

Marathon Oil pulls its support from the Sandpiper Pipeline, a project which would've sent fracked oil through Anishinaabe wild rice beds and Minnesota's watersheds. The Certificate of Need was granted based on Marathon's "need" for this oil, so what now, big oil?

“After four years of hard work on the Sandpiper – and as the people who would be most impacted by the proposed pipeline – we are extremely happy with this announcement. Our tribes have opposed this from the start,” said Winona LaDuke, Executive Director, Honor the Earth. “The battle against the nefarious Line 3 – with 760,000 barrels per day of oil – and the Alberta Clipper expansion – of 400,000 barrels – continues to impact our sacred wild rice watershed. The entire set of projects in light of a massive drop in Bakken production and decline in oil prices remains a financial problem for Enbridge. Our tribes stand opposed to any new lines.” 

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HONOR THE EARTH For Immediate Release

May 28, 2016 

EPA Sends Strong Message to Minnesota Regarding Sandpiper/Line 3

This past Friday, the US Environmental Protection Agency Region V sent strong recommendations to Minnesota on the scoping for the state environmental impact statement on the Sandpiper and Line Three.  The EPA called for much more stringent and exhaustive reviews that the state is anticipated to undertake. The Agency’s comments were in addition to hundreds of comments submitted by Minnesotans and Anishinaabeg regarding the process. 

Despite billions of dollars of investment in the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to carry out environmental stewardship duties, the State of Minnesota insists on having the Department of Commerce do the environmental review for the largest fossil fuel infrastructure mega-project in state history.   On May 18 meeting, the Environmental Quality Board voted to deny the people's request to transfer control of the Sandpiper/Line 3 EIS to the environmental agencies.  Read on for more details and to watch the video of the Honor the Earth team (Winona LaDuke, Korey Northrup, Don Wedll, and Thane Maxwell) testifying at that meeting....

Immediate Release May 11, 2016  

CHIPPEWA EXTEND ONE-DAY FISHING PERMIT TO GOVERNOR DAYTON’S SANDY LAKE OPENER 

Sandy Lake, MN – The 1855 Treaty Authority issued a one-day fishing permit and pass for Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and his members while they spend the 2016 Governor's Fishing Opener on one of the most important, original 1855 Chippewa reservations, Sandy Lake. 

On February 1, 2016, four enrolled Ojibwe band members given citations last summer for exercising their treaty rights, appeared in court and pled not guilty, with a pre-trial conference scheduled for April 26, 2016.  The MN Department of Natural Resources (DNR) gave the 4 citations on August 28, 2015.  Two were cited for harvesting wild rice on Hole in the Day Lake without a Minnesota DNR permit (Morningstar and Harvey Goodsky) and two were cited for casting a gill net on Gull Lake (Todd Thompson and Jim Northrup).  The four individuals were exercising their constitutionally-protected right to subsist off the land in the 1855 Treaty area.  The civil disobedience action was organized by the 1855 Treaty Authority in an effort to have these rights clarified and validated by federal courts.  Read more.....

Federal Court hears White Earth Nation v. Kerry

This Thursday, September l0 at 9:00 am, Federal Judge Michael Davis will hear White Earth Nation v. Kerry.  Plaintiffs, including the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Honor the Earth and the Sierra Club, charge that the US State Department secretly approved Alberta Clipper aka the “switcheroo project,” skirting the environmental review required under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) and the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”). The State Department’s action has allowed Enbridge to switch lines at the border from the Alberta Clipper Line to an expanded and improved, (but aging) Line 3. The l6 mile border segment moves oil between the Clipper line and the Line 3 segment to, ostensibly, according to plaintiffs, avoid federal law. Read more

On July 1, 2015, the National Congress of American Indians adopted a formal resolution calling for a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Enbridge Energy’s proposed Sandpiper/Line 3 oil pipeline corridor across treaty-ceded territory in Northern Minnesota.  The NCAI is the oldest and largest national organization of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments.  The official resolution can be viewed on their website here.    

The resolution calls for...