Less than three weeks after crude oil started flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline, a judge has ruled that the pipeline’s environmental review was inadequate and did not address potential impacts to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s fishing and hunting rights, or on environmental justice. President Trump ordered an expedited approval process for the Dakota and Keystone XL pipelines this past January, following years of protests by environmental groups.
In a move that should surprise nobody, President Trump today announced that the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Paris climate accord, an agreement between 195 countries to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Trump did not provide details about the withdrawal, a process that according to the original agreement will legally take about four years. The president did proclaim that the U.S. would immediately cease implementation of the accord’s non-binding elements, including withdrawing from the U.N. Green Climate Fund, and offered to rejoin the accord or some future agreement under different, to-be-negotiated terms.