Joe Biden Canceled Keystone XL. Indigenous Leaders Demand the Same for the Dakota Access Pipeline

After President Joe Biden issued an executive order on his first day in office canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, pressure is growing from Indigenous leaders and environmental groups for the new administration to do the same with the Dakota Access pipeline, the controversial project that sparked the historic Standing Rock uprising in 2016.

“The pipeline is illegal,” says Jodi Archambault, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and former special assistant to President Barack Obama on Native American affairs. “The best thing that he can do is drop the appeals to this and stop the oil from flowing now.”

Democracy Now! also speaks with Alex White Plume, a former vice president and president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, whose late wife Debra White Plume was a key organizer at Standing Rock.

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