What's next after Trump jumpstarts the Dakota Access pipeline

Energy and labor groups say President Donald Trump's executive action Tuesday greenlighting the hotly contested Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines gives both the momentum they need to finally get oil flowing.

Reversing former President Barack Obama's direction, Trump signed orders aimed at finishing the much contested and delayed Dakota Access pipeline and reviving the Keystone XL pipeline.

Among the memoranda he signed, Trump sought to speed up the environmental review the Obama administration ordered in December that effectively halted construction of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline that cuts across the heart of Iowa.

That project is set to carry crude oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota to Patoka, Ill., passing through 18 Iowa counties along the way. It has been much maligned by Iowa landowners and environmentalists, as well as by American Indian tribes in North Dakota and across the country.

Trump's memorandum on Dakota Access calls for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to "review and approve in an expedited manner" the federal permitting required to complete the project. It also directs the Army to consider rescinding or modifying its December action, including its call for a deeper environmental study.

While labor unions, Iowa business leaders and the National Association of Manufacturers hailed Tuesday's news, Trump's actions raised as many questions as they answered. Pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

In his Oval Office remarks Trump called for the use of American steel in both projects and said his administration would renegotiate the terms surrounding both pipelines.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump would rely on his business acumen to ensure that taxpayers "get the best deal possible" on the lucrative pipeline infrastructure projects.

"They're going to make these organizations a lot of money," Spicer told reporters about the pipelines. "And what he's ensuring is that the American taxpayer gets the best deal possible."

'Complex chess game'

The Dakota Access pipeline is welded and buried across its 1.6 million-foot Iowa route, with only clean-up work remaining in four northwest Iowa counties, according to the pipeline company's Dec. 28 filing with the Iowa Utilities Board.

Company officials have said the project is more than 90 percent completed across its four-state route.

However, the project used 57 percent American-made steel, according to a spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, an industry group that has lobbied for completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. That's less than than the 100 percent American-made steel Trump called for Tuesday.

"What's he going to do with all the pipe that’s in the ground that’s not American-made?" said Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network in Ames.

Raffensperger, a longtime pipeline opponent, said the news does not end the debate over the pipeline's fate. Lawsuits challenging the project in Iowa and federal court are still pending.

Dakota Access pipeline visible from aircraft above Iowa

And Raffensperger believes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will continue compiling its environmental impact study, though now under different directives.

"It really is a complex chess game," she said. "At this point, I don’t think that the landscape has changed significantly, except we know that the Corps is not going to have much leeway in what they do."

Members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement gathered at the state Capitol building Tuesday spoke about many political fights they're ready to take on, including defending local minimum wage hikes and defeating a proposed voter ID bill. And activists pledged that they would continue to fight the Dakota Access pipeline.

“Rather than clearing the swamp like he (Trump) said, he’s just solidifying the swamp, further entrenching oil and gas interests and continuing to destroy the planet,” said Matt Ohloff, an organizer with CCI. "There are still many legal hurdles for Dakota Access and the Trump administration to overcome. And we’re going to continue to fight this at every step."

'Long-awaited victory'

Industry groups, though, celebrated the announcement Tuesday, saying it signals the birth of a new, more favorable energy policy landscape.

Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said Trump's "common-sense" action reverses years of theatrics, delays and obfuscations by the Obama administration.

"Here's the bottom line, folks: Today is a huge and long-awaited victory," he told reporters. "This is good for workers. It's good for manufacturers. It's good for our economy."

Obama stopped the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in late 2015, declaring it would have undercut U.S. efforts to clinch a global climate change deal that was a centerpiece of his environmental legacy.

The pipeline would run from Canada to Nebraska where it would connect to existing lines running to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. The U.S. government must approve the pipeline because it would cross the nation's northern border.

Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said both pipeline projects would inject millions into local communities and create thousands of new jobs. The union was among several to reap the cash bonanza of pipeline work in Iowa.

"What we saw today was bold and decisive action from President Trump," O'Sullivan said. "He said he was going to create middle-class jobs, and by what he did today, that’s what he's going to do."

'Insane and extreme' actions

Tribal nations, which have fought the pipeline for months, excoriated Trump's announcement, claiming he is ignoring treaty rights.

Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, an environmentally-focused nonprofit coalition of indigenous and native people, said Trump was putting the fossil fuel industry ahead of environmental concerns, human rights and indigenous rights.

"Trump is portraying his true self by joining forces with the darkness of the Black Snake pipelines crossing across the culturally and environmentally rich landscape of the prairie lands of America," Goldtooth said in a statement Tuesday. “These actions by President Trump are insane and extreme and nothing short of attacks on our ancestral homelands as indigenous peoples."

In North Dakota, leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe were equally alarmed. That tribe has long contested the project, fearing its passage under the Missouri River could threaten the reservation's drinking water, as well as that of millions of Americans downstream.

“By granting the easement, Trump is risking our treaty rights and water supply to benefit his wealthy contributors and friends at DAPL,” said Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II. “We are not opposed to energy independence. We are opposed to reckless and politically motivated development projects, like DAPL, that ignore our treaty rights and risk our water.

"Creating a second Flint does not make America great again.”

Members of Standing Rock and other Sioux nations began occupying U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land in North Dakota in April as a peaceful protest of the pipeline. They were quickly joined by more than 300 tribes and thousands of environmentalists from across the planet.

But it's unlikely Standing Rock's objections will revive the massive protest encampments formed to oppose the pipeline. While campers once swelled to as many as 10,000, their numbers thinned out considerably in December as North Dakota's fierce winter took hold and the pipeline work was halted.

'Home is what you make it': voices from the anti-pipeline camp

The Standing Rock tribal council and other local leaders have asked campers to leave, fearing melting ice and spring showers will create a swampy mess for the camps, which occupy a flood plain managed by the Corps.

On the camp's Facebook page, organizers on Saturday asked supporters to leave, saying the tribe would not allow occupiers beyond Feb. 19.

"The ceremony that called you here has ended — the sacred fires have been put to sleep," the lengthy post said. "To stay here is not peaceful. To stay here invites violence and may hurt all the First Nations who sacrificed so much with us to protect the Earth."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.