Editor's note: The following article was signed by members of the Minnesota faith community. They are listed below.
Dear members of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission:
We are leaders from many religious traditions. We are rabbis, imams, priests, pastors, deacons, elders, and others, among thousands of people of faith and conscience who oppose the Enbridge Energy Line 3 pipeline. Today we speak to you with one voice asking you to reject the Line 3 replacement because of the harm it would do to the Anishinaabe people.
The proposed Line 3 pipeline would carry toxic heavy crude oil 337 miles through northern Minnesota, threatening our state's clean lakes and rivers. In so doing, it threatens Native treaty rights and lifeways. Line 3 would run through the Mississippi headwaters and through many waters that grow wild rice. This is a sacred food to the Anishinaabe.
The Anishinaabe signed treaties with the U.S. government that guaranteed they retained rights to hunt, fish and gather throughout large areas of northern Minnesota — including lands Line 3 would cross. The state review process should have addressed these critical treaty issues head-on instead of sidestepping them. Approving Line 3 would continue a long tradition of taking positions against politically marginalized Indigenous communities and putting the burden on them to fight for their rights in court.
Enbridge has a history of pipeline spills, and any spill in wild-rice areas would be devastating. Even if there were no spills (an implausible outcome), this pipeline would be a massive new investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure at a time when the threat of climate change requires a new direction. Climate change poses a grave threat to Minnesota's people and ecosystems. Worse, climate change disproportionately harms poor people, Indigenous people and people of color. Faith leaders worldwide have spoken about the need to take urgent action on climate change, in statements such as the Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change; a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis; "The Time to Act is Now: A Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change"; "Bhumi Devi ki Jai!: A Hindu Declaration on Climate Change"; and Pope Francis' Laudato Si' encyclical.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce concluded that this pipeline is not needed for regional energy needs. We acknowledge that some people support the project because of the construction jobs it would create; however, Line 3 is a step in the wrong direction. We need new jobs as part of a "just transition" to a new renewable-energy economy, with construction projects that make Minnesota a better home for everyone.
At its core, this is a moral issue. Many of us signing this letter come from Christian and other traditions that in recent years have taken formal positions acknowledging the role of our faith institutions in the mistreatment and deep trauma done to Indigenous peoples. (These include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Community of Christ, the United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church.) We have committed ourselves to seeking ways forward for healing and repair. Our signatures here represent an effort to live out that commitment.
