Backers hope Don KOs pipeline nix

Supporters of the Dakota Access Pipeline said Monday they are confident that the incoming Trump administration will overturn the Obama administration’s decision to block it.

“I’m encouraged we will restore law and order next month when we get a president who will not thumb his nose at the rule of law,” Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said.

Another major pipeline backer, North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, agreed: “The Obama administra- tion’s refusal to issue an easement . . . passes the decision off to the next administration, which has already indicated it will approve the easement.”

Brian Mannix, research professor at the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, expects the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision Sunday to be reversed — either by a court or by President-elect Donald Trump when he takes office.

“This is an executive-agency decision. The Corps of Engineers is part of the Pentagon, which reports to the president — and so he and his appointees have the authority to make a different decision than Obama’s Corps of Engineers made,” Mannix said.

He added that the Obama administration would have a tough time defending its decision in court, since its unexpected “red light” is inconsistent with the “green lights” the pipeline had received previously.

Opponents of the pipeline celebrated when the corps denied an easement for the 1,172-mile project, which would connect the Bakken and Three Forks oil-production areas in North Dakota to existing crude-oil pipelines in Illinois.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had filed a lawsuit against the corps in July, alleging the federal government ignored environmental and cultural concerns when giving the pipeline its final permits.