[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 172 (Thursday, December 1, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H7065]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Hawaii (Ms. Gabbard) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. GABBARD. Mr. Speaker, growing up in Hawaii, I learned the value 
of caring for our home, caring for our planet, and the basic principle 
that we are all connected in this great chain of cause and effect.
  The Dakota Access Pipeline is a threat to this great balance of life. 
Despite strong opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux and serious 
concerns raised by the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the 
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and other Federal agencies, 
the Army Corps of Engineers approved permits to construct the Dakota 
Access Pipeline without adequately consulting the tribes and without 
fully evaluating the potential impacts to the neighboring tribal lands, 
sacred sites, and their water supply. Just one spill near the tribe's 
reservation could release thousands of barrels of crude oil, 
contaminating the tribe's drinking water.
  The impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline is clear. Energy Transfer 
Partners, the company that is constructing the Dakota pipeline, has a 
history of serious pipeline explosions, which have caused injury, 
death, and significant property damage in the past decade. The future 
operator of the planned pipeline, Sunoco Logistics Partners, has had 
over 200 environmentally damaging oil spills in the last 6 years alone, 
more than any of its competitors.
  Protecting our water is not a partisan political issue; it is an 
issue that is important to all people and all living beings everywhere. 
Water is life. We cannot survive without it. Once we allow an aquifer 
to be polluted, there is very little that can be done about it. This is 
why it is essential that we prevent our water resources from being 
polluted in the first place.
  Our Founding Fathers took great inspiration from Native American 
forms of governance and the democratic principles that they were 
founded on. Their unique form of governance was built on an agreement 
called the Great Law of Peace, which states that before beginning their 
deliberations, the council shall be obliged ``to express their 
gratitude to their cousins and greet them, and they shall make an 
address and offer thanks to the Earth where men dwell, to the streams 
of water, the pools, the springs and the lakes, to the maize and the 
fruits, to the medicinal herbs and trees, to the forest trees for their 
usefulness . . . and to the Great Creator who dwells in the heavens 
above, who gives all the things useful to men, and who is the source 
and the ruler of health and life.''
  This recognition of our debt to the Creator and our responsibility to 
be responsible members of this great web of life was there from the 
beginning of western democracy.
  Freedom is not a buzzword. The freedom of our Founding Fathers was 
not the freedom to bulldoze wherever you like.
  Our freedom is a freedom of mind, a freedom of heart, a freedom to 
worship as we see fit, freedom from tyranny, and freedom from terror. 
That is the freedom this country was founded on--the freedom cultivated 
by America's native people and the freedom that the Standing Rock Sioux 
are now exercising.
  This weekend, I am joining thousands of veterans from all across the 
country at Standing Rock to stand in solidarity with our Native 
American brothers and sisters. Together, we call on President Obama to 
immediately halt the construction of this pipeline, respect the sacred 
lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, and respect their right to clean 
water. The truth is whether it is the threat to essential water sources 
in this region, the lead contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, or the 
threat posed to a major Hawaii aquifer by the Red Hill fuel leak, each 
example underscores the vital importance of protecting our water 
resources.
  We cannot undo history, but we must learn lessons from the past and 
carry them forward, to encourage cooperation among free people, to 
protect the sacred, and to care for the Earth, for our children and our 
children's children. What is at stake is our shared heritage of freedom 
and democracy and our shared future on this great Turtle Island, our 
United States of America.

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