The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the hundreds of Native protestors who have joined them in rural North Dakota won a huge but provisional victory in their quest to stop the Dakota Access pipeline... Mere minutes after a federal judge declined the Tribe’s request for an injunction to stop construction on the pipeline, the Obama administration made a surprise announcement that it would not permit the project to continue for now...[in] a joint statement from the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Army... The Army will now move to “reconsider any of its previous decisions” regarding whether the pipeline respects federal law, especially the National Environmental Policy Act, the statement said.

The Obama administration also announced that it will invite tribes to formal consultations this fall about whether any federal rules around national infrastructure projects like the Dakota Access pipeline should be reformed in order to protect tribal resources and rights.