The news is not surprising, but disappointing nonetheless.  Douglas Lamont, the “Senior Official Preforming (sic) the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Army” announced that he had called upon the Army Corps of Engineers to end its Environmental Impact Review.  He has asked that his intentions be published in the Federal Register.  The process will move quickly if the Trump Administration has its way, for Lamont told congressional leaders that the Army will “waive its policy to wait 14 days after Congressional notification before granting an easement.”

The legal battle may continue.  There are, of course, the legal fights involving the many people arrested by the army of police protecting the assets of Energy Transfer Partners.  but there is also hope of an injunction. The message here is clear.  If you did not see it before, you can see it now.  The administration of Donald Trump has no interest in consultation with Native American communities as required under the entirely uncontroversial Executive Order 13175 issued by President Bill Clinton in early 2000.  Corporate well-being, a slowly dying fossil fuel industry, and not real people and the lands upon which they live and the water they need to survive, are what is most important to Donald Trump, our Creon, in his morally desiccated vision of the American republic.