MN Legislators to Visit Line 3 Construction Area Sunday to Express Solidarity With Pipeline Opponents

Six Minnesota legislators who oppose the pipeline in Northern Minnesota, five of them newly elected, will visit a construction area near Palisade. Their visit demonstrates support for water protectors fighting to halt construction on a pipeline that violates Indigenous treaties and ignores tribal sovereignty. Honor the Earth leaders recently built a traditional lodge on the site. Legislators will meet with Honor the Earth Executive Director Winona LaDuke.

The Line 3 pipeline also is a climate catastrophe; it would be responsible for more carbon pollution that the entire state of Minnesota.

WHEN: Noon on Sunday, Dec. 13

WHERE: 59057 Great River Road in Palisade, MN

WHO:

• Winona LaDuke of Honor the Earth
• Rep.-elect Heather Keeler, District 4A, Moorhead
• Sen.-elect Mary Kunesh, District 41, New Brighton
• Sen. John Marty, District 66, Roseville
• Sen.-elect Jen McEwen, District 7, Duluth
• Sen.-elect Erin Murphy, District 64, St. Paul
• Sen.-elect Lindsey Port, District 56, Burnsville

QUOTES:

"Approval of this pipeline despite years of opposition from Native communities is nothing less than yet another assault on Indigenous sovereignty. Spending thousands of pipeline workers into Northern Minnesota to build the pipeline in the middle of a pandemic is careless in a time when we should be trying to protect our communities. I join with my relatives in calling on Gov. Walz to order a halt to construction." -- Rep.-elect Heather Keeler, Moorhead

"I am pleased to meet with, and give my support to, Honor the Earth in their efforts to stop this destructive pipeline. Honor the Earth is speaking out for many whose voices have not been heard, despite the long permitting process. The perspectives of the Red Lake and White Earth Nations, who have rights to treaty lands through which this new pipeline will run, have not been taken into account. The Public Utilities Commission acknowledged that they omitted discussion of treaties from the order, believing they did not need to. The long history of abuse and mistreatment of Native communities and the unwillingness to respond to their grievances has gone on far too long." -- Sen. John Marty, Roseville

[The growing involvement by legislators] "represents a shift in the way that we're thinking about the climate crisis and the way we're thinking about energy. Climate scientists have told us we have 10 years -- 10 years to remake our systems to create a clean energy-based economy. If we want to have a livable planet for our future and the generations to come, we simply cannot build new fossil fuel infrastructure. That ship has sailed. Most people understand this. The only reason the Line 3 expansion is moving forward is because a small group of powerful, wealthy interests wants to cash in before the fossil fuel industry tanks." -- Sen.-elect Jen McEwen, Duluth