Native Americans & Activists Protest Dakota Access Pipeline At Clinton’s Brooklyn Headquarters Yesterday

Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn Heights campaign headquarters made national news yesterday.

Saying that they wanted to know her stance on the Dakota Access Pipeline, a group of Native American young people and other environmental activists occupied the lobby of Clinton’s Brooklyn campaign headquarters at 1 Pierrepont Plaza yesterday, Democracy Now and other outlets have reported.

The demonstrators sought to speak with someone from Clinton’s campaign about the pipeline project, which would transport crude oil almost 1,200 miles, from the North Dakota Bakken region, through South Dakota and Iowa, into Illinois. The pipeline is being fought by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe because it will cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, a half mile from the tribe’s reservation boundary. The Standing Rock Sioux say pipeline construction is destroying historic indigenous sites and threatens their water supply.

Clinton campaign staff declined to speak with the protestors, according to news reports. The police were called, who then asked protestors to leave the building.

According to the pipeline’s builder, Energy Transfer, the Dakota Access could transport as much as 570,000 gallons of crude oil per day. The pipeline was originally to have crossed the Missouri River near Bismarck, North Dakota, but the point of crossing was moved because of concerns about how a possible spill could impact the state capital, Smithsonian Magazine reports. At least 60 percent of the pipeline has already been constructed.

The Clinton campaign released a statement about the pipeline yesterday. We were unable to get someone from the campaign to speak with us, but Mint Press News published what it said was the full statement:

We received a letter today from representatives of the tribes protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. From the beginning of this campaign, Secretary Clinton has been clear that she thinks all voices should be heard and all views considered in federal infrastructure projects.

Now, all of the parties involved—including the federal government, the pipeline company and contractors, the state of North Dakota, and the tribes—need to find a path forward that serves the broadest public interest. As that happens, it’s important that on the ground in North Dakota, everyone respects demonstrators’ rights to protest peacefully, and workers’ rights to do their jobs safely.

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, who helped to draft the 2016 Democratic environmental platform and has been adamant that new pipeline construction will exacerbate climate change, maintained that Clinton’s statement on the Dakota Access pipeline “literally says nothing.”

Yesterday, protestors and riot police accompanied by armored vehicles clashed during a standoff in the path of the pipeline outside Bismarck, according to NBC News. At least one-hundred-forty protestors were arrested.