BISMARCK, N.D. — The federal judge who will decide whether oil flows through the disputed Dakota Access pipeline has shown sympathy for the historical plight of American Indians, but has also made clear that he doesn’t think that should play a role in judicial decisions.
U.S. District Judge James “Jeb” Boasberg is overseeing a lawsuit filed by the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux that could be their last hope of stopping the $3.8 billion pipeline to carry North Dakota oil to Illinois. The tribes argue the pipeline threatens drinking water and cultural sites. A hearing is scheduled Monday.
While the Washington, D.C.-based Boasberg cited in a previous ruling the historic exploitation of Indians in early America, he also told an attorney for the tribe last year he won’t be influenced by phone calls from pipeline opponents to sway his opinion.
Boasberg has been appointed to judgeships by both Republican and Democratic presidents, showing he is respected by both conservatives and liberals, said a third colleague of Boasberg, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Senior Judge Dorothy Nelson, for whom Boasberg once clerked.
Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners this week received approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to lay pipe under Lake Oahe, a Missouri river reservoir that’s the tribes’ water source. It’s the final chunk of construction for the 1,200-mile pipeline. The Cheyenne River tribe has asked Boasberg to stop the work until the legal battle is resolved.
Boasberg earned his law degree from Yale in 1990. He was appointed to his current post on the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011.
In responding to questions in 2010 from then-Alabama U.S. senator and current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Boasberg agreed with another judge who had rejected Obama’s call for empathy in a Supreme Court justice.
“If empathy means sympathizing with one party such that a judge fails to follow the law, then I believe it should not play a role in a judge’s consideration of a case,” Boasberg said.