Investors Believe In DAPL

The battle has only started:

In other words, the companies believe that they, not the government nor the Native American tribes whose land could be impacted by the pipeline, make the decision. They’ve deemed the ruling illegitimate because it was made by an administration with which they disagree, and they signaled they will move ahead regardless. Investors seem to agree. The stock of Energy Transfer Partners only fell about 2 percent in early trading.

There’s good reason to believe the companies’ analysis of the situation isn’t just posturing—and their confidence is downright terrifying. There are two possible reasons the Army Corps issued this decision. First, it could be that the corps, which is tasked with managing the health of large internal waterways and infrastructure projects, really believes that it is a bad idea to put a crude oil pipeline underneath a dammed portion of the Missouri River. Second, it’s possible that Obama political appointees higher up the chain of command leaned on the bureaucracy to issue a last-gasp environmental protection effort.

Either way, it’s easy to see how this could be reversed in a matter of months.