Tag: Line 3

Line 3 Protest at logging site in Cass County, MN

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pic via Northfield Against Line 3

cross-posted from Northfield Against Line 3

WATER PROTECTORS PROTEST TAR SANDS LINE 3 PIPELINE

A peaceful rally held in Northern Minnesota promoted Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice

CASS COUNTY, MN —  20 water protectors held a rally today at a logging site where workers had been patch clear cutting trees along the proposed route of Line 3, the proposed tar sands pipeline expansion owned by Canadian company Enbridge Energy. At 1PM, water protectors from across Minnesota, including organizers with Northfield Against Line 3, rallied for over an hour among large logging equipment and felled trees, chanting “Honor the Treaties!” and “Stop Line 3” before they left the site.

“We are here to send the message loud and clear: Line 3 will not be built! All pipelines spill, and Enbridge has deliberately misled the public. We need real climate solutions, and they must be rooted in honoring Indigenous sovereignty,” said Elizabeth (a pseudonym), one of the water protectors involved in the rally.

This afternoon’s acts of civilian oversight build off of a decade of growing opposition to the proposed Line 3 pipeline, which would transport 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada to the western shore of Lake Superior. Despite facing significant delays in court, the company has allowed to begin what it calls “pre-construction,” making today’s intervention a necessary step in enforcing transparency along the proposed corridor. Line 3’s proposed route puts sensitive ecosystems at risk, including 15 watersheds and 215 lakes, and its associated carbon emissions would further destabilize the global climate. Enbridge is still waiting for the verdict on their 401 water quality permit, a crucial oversight from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

pic via Northfield Against Line 3

Today’s action highlights acts of patch clear cutting in a ecologically vulnerable area that directly abuts the proposed Line 3 expansion route. This logging of birch and pine trees is part of a legacy of abuse upon the land and the land’s original inhabitants by logging companies and the state government who bought the land cheaply, making way for decades of violent extraction. While the profits from rotating timber permits are supposed to support township services, the logging occurred in 1855 Treaty Territory, violating the rights of the Anishinaabe people to fish, hunt and gather, and make free, prior and informed decisions regarding any project.

“We must end the perpetuation of settler colonialism and cycle of mindless extraction. We’re here fighting for a livable future for all, because another world is not only necessary, but possible,” said Emerson (a pseudonym), another water protector involved in the action.

Buoyed by the actions of several groups opposing Line 3 in so-called Minnesota and beyond, today’s successful rally will no doubt continue to galvanize the wider movement to stop all fossil fuel projects, especially tar sands extraction, and demand climate justice. Activists came to observe and protest nearby logging to raise awareness of the devastating possibilities of business as usual.

City Pages: Minneapolis protesters decry ‘suit and tie motherfuckers’ lobbying for Enbridge

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cross-posted from City Pages

February 27, 2020

by Hannah Jones

The Capella office tower in downtown Minneapolis is so echoey, it was hard to ignore the protesters chanting on the second floor no matter where you were standing.

The group, carrying signs that said “STOP LINE 3” and “NO PIPELINES,” was gathered outside the elevators to Winthrop and Weinstine, a law firm way up on the 35th floor. A few people dressed in office attire skirted past them warily as they headed to lunch. A man in a tie watched the proceedings from a few yards away, occasionally muttering a few words into a walkie-talkie.

Calgary energy company Enbridge is trying to replace its massive Line 3 pipeline, which pumps oil across a large swath of northern Minnesota, with a newer, bigger pipeline.

The protesters hailed from Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of America, Northfield Against Line 3, and other anti-pipeline orgs. They argue completing the pipeline and allowing more oil (760,000 barrels a day, to be exact) to gush through the state will only add to our climate change woes. They also say it’s only a matter of time before it leaks, with potentially devastating effects on the environment and the surrounding Native communities.

The protesters explained they were in Capella and not, say, the state Capitol, because Winthrop and Weinstine lawyer Eric Swanson works as a registered lobbyist for Enbridge, and spends a lot of time testifying before the state’s Public Utilities Commission. Enbridge, in fact, was Minnesota’s biggest spender on lobbying in 2018, according to the Star Tribune, with a whopping $11.1 million spent mostly on those arguments before the PUC.

Then there’s Winthrop and Weinstine’s purported financial influence. In 2019, the law firm gave thousands of dollars to a smattering of local and state campaigns, and $25,000 to Gov. Tim Walz’s inaugural committee, according to MPR. (Unlike campaign committee donations, our state’s inaugural committees have no restrictions on who can give or how much.)

In short, the problem, one protester said into the megaphone, was “the suit and tie motherfuckers going around giving money to politicians like Tim Walz.” Shortly afterward, the man with the tie and the walkie-talkie sidled up and informed the protester that “respectful language” was used “in this building.”

Walz has been difficult to pin down on Line 3. In 2017, he tweeted that any pipeline that went through treaty lands was a “non-starter.” Then, during his campaign, he said he was “satisfied” with the PUC’s decision to move forward with the project. Last year, he continued a court appeal set by the previous administration to block the pipeline project, a decision Enbridge called “unfortunate.”

The protestors aren’t willing to celebrate until he puts his foot down.

“If you take money from the fossil fuel lobby you cannot call yourself a climate progressive and you cannot expect our support,” the group said in a statement.

Mere minutes after the chanting began, a few security guards turned up and started herding the protestors toward the doors. They went willingly, seemingly unsurprised that they were being asked to leave so soon. But as they squeezed out the front doors with their signs and megaphones, they chanted, “We’ll be back.”

Gretchen Milbrath, Winthrop and Weinstine’s director of business, said the firm respected the group’s right to protest, but wouldn’t comment on the specifics.

MN: Water Protectors Stage Direct Action in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Fight Against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline

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For immediate release: January 28, 2020 , 11:00 AM CST

 Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Water Protectors Stage Direct Action in Fond du Lac in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Fight Against the Coastal Gaslink pipeline

Photo included

Fond du Lac, MN. –– A group of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Water Protectors, blockaded an access road to a TC Energy work site where the Canadian company—formerly known as TransCanada—is performing work on natural gas lines on the Fond du Lac reservation. Today’s action is in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Nation’s fight to protect their traditional territories from fossil fuel expansion. The hereditary chiefs representing the five clans of the Wet’suwet’en are currently blocking construction on a section of TC Energy’s C$6.6-billion Coastal Gaslink pipeline, which would run through their ancestral lands in northern B.C.

“We will stand for no colonial resource extraction on Indigenous lands any longer, in solidarity with our Wet’suwet’en brothers and sisters in so-called Canada who are fighting the Coastal Gaslink pipeline,” said an Indigenous Water Protector. “We are a new generation of warriors and we have awoken with the call in our hearts to protect the sacred. It is no longer a rallying cry, it is something that we mean to live by.”

Local resistance to pipelines has been mounting in recent years in opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 tar sands pipeline which would violate Anishinaabe treaty rights to hunt, fish, and gather in their treaty territories. Line 3 and TC Energy’s gas pipelines threaten Indigenous sovereignty and full access to their lands.

“This is a call to arms from Indigenous elders who believe that showing solidarity with other struggles is very needed and very necessary in the fight moving forward,” said another Indigenous Water Protector.

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St. Paul, MN: Grand Opening of New JPMorgan Chase Branch Disrupted by Climate Activists, Students

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cross-posted from Stop Line 3

Grand Opening of MN JPMorgan Chase Branch Disrupted by Climate Activists, Students 

World’s worst banker of climate change under fire for its massive financing of fossil fuels and Line 3 pipeline

Saint Paul –– As the newest Chase branch in Minnesota opened its doors for the first time, activists and students from Macalester College staged a rally and “die-in” in the lobby, demanding that the world’s worst banker of climate change defund fossil fuels. The action follows a blitz of demonstrations across the country this year targeting Chase Bank; from Chicago, to New York, to Seattle, to Los Angeles, to San Francisco.

“As a young person who will be inheriting this uncertain future, I know climate action is needed now,” said Andrew Vrabel Miles, a 23 year old senior at nearby Macalester College. “Chase bank, which is opening a branch right by my school, has taken no action to defund climate change by defunding fossil fuels and major fossil fuel infrastructure projects like the Line 3 pipeline. We demand Chase stop destroying our future!”

According to data from Rainforest Action Network’s Banking on Climate Change 2019 report, since the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase has provided $196 billion in finance for fossil fuels. Chase is the world’s worst funder of fossil fuels and the world’s worst funder of fossil fuel expansion –– by a large margin. Additionally, Chase is one of several banks currently lending to three different active Enbridge pipeline-related loans, totaling approx. $5.4 billion.

“We are taking action today because Chase needs to be held accountable for its outsized role in
the climate crisis,” said Ethan Nuss with Rainforest Action Network. “Our very future is
contingent on an immediate end to the expansion of fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure. We
won’t stop taking action until Chase takes real tangible action on climate.”

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