Kaine: Rerouting ND pipeline ‘the right thing to do’

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine has endorsed President Obama’s call to reroute the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. 

“They already rerouted it once — it was routed to be near Bismarck and that route was changed,” Kaine told Fusion in an interview. 

{mosads}“If it’s changed once, if it’s an important enough project, you ought to be able to find a route that works. So what the Obama administration has done by saying, let’s look at route alternatives, I think is the right thing to do.”

Obama last week told NowThis News that he hopes the Army Corps of Engineers eventually reroutes the $3.8 billion pipeline project. 

A tribe in North Dakota has objected to the planned route for the pipeline, saying it threatens cultural sites and drinking water near their land. The project is on hold while the Obama administration reassesses its previous approval process for the pipeline, a review Obama said will “determine whether or not this can be resolved in a way that I think is properly attentive to traditions of the first Americans.”

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe welcomed the call to move the pipeline, though environmentalists insist Obama should deny it outright. Dakota Access developer Energy Transfer Partners said there has been no discussion about moving the project.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has not set out a specific position on Dakota Access, making Kaine’s Monday statement the clearest answer yet on what would happen to it should the dispute stretch into Clinton’s administration.

Kaine said he was “optimistic” about a broader Obama review of the permitting process for infrastructure projects near tribal land. 

“I know the administration is working very hard on that,” he said.