Direct Access is currently building a pipeline through land that belongs to the Standing Rock Sioux, and will build it to go under a major waterway, the Missouri River, giving it the potential to contaminate a major source of water for many people.
They have already unearthed remains of tribal ancestors.
The White House should be taking a stand against the treatment of protesters. Protesters have been shot, maced, arrested without cause (even a journalist, Amy Goodman, was arrested), and treated harshly in defense of a pipeline that should not be constructed at all.
The Sioux say that this pipeline's construction violates an 1854 treaty. If we are violating our treaties, what are they worth?