Obama unraveling rule of law with Dakota Access stoppage

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

The Obama administration may be unraveling the very fabric of U.S. democracy by holding up the approval of the Dakota Access oil pipeline after a federal court said it could move ahead, a coalition of diverse industry groups said in a letter sent Thursday night to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other federal agency officials.

 

"We write to express our deep concerns over recent actions that took place in North Dakota to effectively ignore the rule of law in an attempt to halt infrastructure development," the letter reads, reminding Lynch that "one of our nation's founding fathers, John Adams, once wrote that the United States is a 'government of laws, and not of men.'"

 

The Dakota Access pipeline has become a symbol for the environmentalist movement in recent weeks, where activists and some Democrats have galvanized opposition against the pipeline as an affront to tribal rights and as a way to combat climate change. But with the pipeline going through two federal courts for review, and both saying it can go forward, it would appear that politics is taking over where the law has left off, say observers.