© Andrew Cullen / Reuters
As the Dakota Access pipeline faces high-profile opposition in North Dakota, including in federal court from Native tribes, another state's residents are suing over the crude oil transportation project. Landowners in Iowa want its eminent domain status voided.
The $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline is being built across 1,172 miles, from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa into Illinois. That is, unless a court order prevents the project from moving forward, and that is a possibility in multiple court cases.
Bill Hanigan represents 15 Iowan farmers in their suit against Dakota Access LLC. What's different about this case, compared to the one in North Dakota, is its focus on eminent domain law, which codifies the government's power to seize private property for the public good.
"In North Dakota, they're arguing about Native American artifacts. In Iowa, we're arguing about the application of the Constitution," Hanigan
explained on Democracy Now! in an interview Tuesday.
The pipeline's defenders "can't prove" they are serving a public purpose, Hanigan plans to show in an Iowa district court. He hopes Judge Jeffrey Farrell will override the Iowa Utilities Board's decision to grant eminent domain status for the project.
Bold Iowa Director Ed Fallon told RT America's Ashlee Banks that the costs of the pipeline to the environment and private property owners outweigh any promised benefit.
Comment: This charity founder and former veteran seems to have little empathy for the suffering of his fellow wounded veterans. The mental scars of PTSD are a very real and natural response of a normal human being to the horrors of war.
UPDATE:
Military charity blasts claims of veterans 'exaggerating' post-conflict mental trauma