Senator Promoting Dakota Access Pipeline Invests In Bakken Oil Wells Named After Indian Tribe

U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) recently came out in support of the Dakota Access pipeline, the hotly contested Energy Transfer Partners-owned pipeline envisioned to move oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from North Dakota's Bakken Shale basin. As the pipeline transports oil across North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, it will cross farms, natural areas, and perhaps most notably, ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which is one of several tribes disagreeing with Sen. Hoeven's assessment that this pipeline is “infrastructure we need.”

What Sen. Hoeven — an outspoken supporter of TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — did not mention, however, is his personal investment in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota under the auspices of the company Mainstream Investors, LLC according to his most recent congressional personal financial disclosure form.

Seventeen of those wells are owned by Continental Resources, the company whose CEO Harold Hamm also serves as a campaign energy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Those wells have a value of between $11,000–$171,000, and 14 of them, named Wahpeton, are located within 18 miles of the Dakota Access Watford City terminal site.

Hoeven is a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, where he has the responsibility to ensure tribal concerns are heard and adequately addressed. However, not all of his constituents feel he is living up to this role.

“It is deplorable that Senator Hoeven, and others like him, sit on the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs,” said Krystal Two Bulls, a participant in the Red Warrior Camp, which has joined up with the Sacred Stone Camp and is an ongoing encampment situated along the pipeline's route at the Standing Rock Reservation. “It's a Committee that should be comprised of people who will look out for the best interest of Indian country, but has turned into a gateway for predators to take advantage of Native American people and their lands.”

The senator also has hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of investments in 33 North Dakota-based oil wells owned by Whiting Petroleum Corporation and hundreds of thousands of dollars more in investments in seven wells owned by ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy. Both companies have donated generously to his 2016 senate campaign.

http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/09/01/john-hoeven-dakota-access-pipeline-investments