#NoDAPL (No Dakota Access Pipeline) is a Twitter hashtag and social media campaign that supported protests and encampments attempting to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe argued that the 1,172-mile-long pipeline’s construction would threaten the tribe’s drinking water and sacred sites due to its proximity to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. [1] [2]
Biden administration Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (D-NM) supported the #NoDAPL movement and saw it as a “drum beat for environmental change.” [3] Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, [4] [5] the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), [6] left-of-center National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), [7] far-left NDN Collective, [8] Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), [9] the Sierra Club, and the left-of-center Native Organizers Alliance, also supported #NoDAPL. [10] [11]
#NoDAPL grew to promote other pipeline-related protests in the United States [12] and claimed to support the concept of “tribal sovereignty.” [13]
History and Leadership
The #NoDAPL social media hashtag began in March 2016 in support of protestors at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in response to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was originally proposed in 2014. [14] By April 2016, the protest had turned into a full-time encampment targeting the pipeline and anyone funding the pipeline. [15] In November 2016, then-North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple (R) issued an executive order to expel the protestors due to harsh winter conditions and illegal camping on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land. [16]
Despite the protests, the Dakota Access Pipeline came online in 2017 several months after then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to resume construction of the project. This order reversed a December 2016 decision from the Obama administration blocking the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. [17] [18]
In June 2021, a federal judge struck down a lawsuit from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to shut down the pipeline. [19] In a 2022 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to overturn a lower court ruling that permitted a federally mandated environmental impact statement (EIS) to take place along the pipeline. [20]
Lakota People’s Law Project Action Center, which is a project of the Romero Institute, [21] advocates for the removal of the Dakota Access Pipeline from the ground [22] and has lobbied the Biden administration to end the pipeline “once and for all.” [23]
Activities and Funding
#NoDAPL is a Twitter hashtag and social media campaign that raised awareness and supported protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile-long pipeline which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe alleged threatened their drinking water and sacred sites due to the pipeline’s proximity to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. [24] [25]
The protestors established an encampment near Standing Rock Indian Reservation to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. With time, #NoDAPL grew to promote other pipeline-related protests in the United States [26] and claimed to support the concept of “tribal sovereignty.” [27]
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), [28] left-of-center National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), [29] far-left NDN Collective, [30] Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), [31] the Sierra Club, and others supported #NoDAPL. [32]
ActionNetwork.org urged activists nationwide to join the #NoDAPL movement, saying, “to defeat a pipeline, it takes a movement of people from all corners of the nation,” [33] [34] and the left-of-center Native Organizers Alliance sponsored a #NoDAPL petition on MoveOn.Org. [35] Change.org hosted a petition to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline which had 559,089 supporters [36] and the International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC) also formed as a part of the NoDAPL protests. [37]
Biden administration Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (D-NM) supported the #NoDAPL movement and saw it as a “drum beat for environmental change.” [38] Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, [39] and U.S. Representative Raul Ruiz (D-CA) also supported the protests. [40]
In 2017, left-wing media outlet Unicorn Riot produced a documentary about #NoDAPL called Black Snake Killaz. [41]
Related Organizations
NoDAPL names left-of-center Amnesty International, Earth Guardians, Honor the Earth, Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), Indigenous Rising (a project of IEN), left-environmentalist International Rivers, Native Renewables, Our Children’s Trust, Owe Aku International, and Bring Back the Way as related organizations and allies in support of the left-wing concept of “environmental justice.” [42]
Funding
NoDAPL organizers encouraged donors to support the protests through the Water Protector Legal Collective by making donations the radical-left National Lawyers Guild. [43]