The Daily Fuckup

The Justice Department on June 11 closed out its long-running fight with North Dakota over public costs tied to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The settlement ends the case for about $27.8 million, according to the state and the department, and the government agreed to dismiss its appeals as part of the deal.

In its statement, the department did not concede liability. It said it disputes the district court’s legal analysis of North Dakota’s claims and of the federal government’s defenses under the Federal Tort Claims Act. It also said that, in hindsight, the federal government could have done more to reduce the impacts on North Dakota from the protests.

The case grew out of the 2016-17 demonstrations near the pipeline route. North Dakota sued in 2019, seeking compensation for law-enforcement and response costs it said the state and local governments absorbed during the protests. A federal court later awarded the state about $27.8 million, and the settlement now brings the dispute to a close on that same number.

The department’s release describes parts of the protest period as unlawful and says federal officials chose not to forcibly clear protesters from federal property to avoid further escalation. It also says some conduct at the height of the protests was not protected speech or peaceful assembly. The state, for its part, has cast the settlement as overdue reimbursement for costs it says taxpayers carried for years.

What the deal does not do is settle the underlying politics of the pipeline fight. It resolves the money case, drops the appeals, and leaves the competing accounts in place: North Dakota says the federal government should have acted sooner, while the Justice Department says it still disputes the court’s legal reasoning but now accepts that its response could have been less damaging.