EDITORIAL: Pipeline protest

The courts have held that laws which regulate speech or expression must at least be “content neutral” to pass constitutional muster. That is, they can’t discriminate based on the message being communicated.

It’s interesting, then, to note how federal bureaucrats have responded to protests in the Dakotas over a Dallas company’s $3.8 billion pipeline project.

The Dakota Access Pipeline — to be built almost entirely on private property — has received federal approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It would cut through North and South Dakota, across the Missouri River into Iowa and east to Illinois.

But members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe believe the project will disturb sacred lands and potentially taint their drinking water. In opposition, a growing group of demonstrators has for weeks occupied a large swath of federal land in North Dakota near some of the pipeline construction.

In September, protesters confronted work crews and the encounter turned physical. Nevertheless, federal officials say they won’t move to eject the demonstrators from public land, even though they do not have permission to be there.

“We don’t have the physical ability to go out and evict people — it gives the appearance of not protecting free speech,” a spokeswoman for the Corps told The Associated Press last week. “Our hands are really tied.”

But Kevin Cramer, a Republican who is North Dakota’s lone congressional representative, isn’t buying it. “If that camp was full of people advocating for fossil fuels,” he said, “they would have been removed by now.”

And does anybody doubt he’s right? Consider the government’s reaction in the Cliven Bundy fiasco. Protecting “free speech” seemed to be the least of the BLM’s concerns.

Wire service reports indicate that many residents and ranchers in the area feel intimidated and threatened. It’s hard to believe federal officials would tolerate this were supporters of the pipeline to descend on the area and behave in a similar fashion.

Construction crews are operating lawfully on private property. Protesters certainly have a right to express their objections, but the feds should either demand that demonstrators secure the proper permits or find a private land owner willing to host their encampment.