Energy Transfer board chair says he sought settlement with Standing Rock in 2016

Kelcy Warren, executive chairman of Energy Transfer, the company that developed the Dakota Access Pipeline, talks about pipeline security during the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference at the Bismarck Event Center in May 2021. (Mike McCleary/Bismarck Tribune)
Energy Transfer Executive Chairman Kelcy Warren claimed in court testimony he traveled to North Dakota in December 2016 to discuss a settlement with then-tribal chair David Archambault II to end protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
'I said, 'David, I'm here to make a deal with you,'' Warren said in a video deposition shown to jurors last week during a trial involving Energy Transfer and Greenpeace. ''What do you want? Money? Land?''
Warren, who was CEO of Energy Transfer at the time, said he was willing to give the tribe a ranch that the company had purchased near part of the pipeline construction site in North Dakota. Energy Transfer just months prior had bought Cannonball Ranch, which is north of Standing Rock in an area that became the center of the anti-pipeline demonstrations.
Warren said he also offered to build a new school on the reservation.
Archambault in a Monday statement to the North Dakota Monitor said his memory of his meeting with Warren is very different. Archambault did not appear as a witness during the trial.
'From my perspective, the purpose of the meeting was not to negotiate a settlement,' Archambault wrote.
Archambault said he met with Warren because he was concerned about growing violence at the protests.
'Given the growing danger, I felt it was necessary to have a direct conversation to discuss de-escalation,' he wrote.
Archambault said that oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm and then-Quapaw Nation chair John Berrey helped arrange his meeting with Warren.
He said he told Warren at the meeting that he was not there to end the protests.
'He asked what it would take to stop the movement, and I explained that it was no longer in my control,' Archambault said. 'The fight against the pipeline had become much bigger than Standing Rock; it was about Indigenous rights and the long history of injustice faced by our people.'
According to Archambault, Warren told him if he had been aware of the history of how infrastructure projects have affected the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe then 'we might not be in this situation.'
Archambault said in the statement that more than a year before his meeting with Warren, he met with another Energy Transfer executive, Joey Mahmoud, to relay his concerns about the Dakota Access Pipeline. Mahmoud was in charge of the project for Energy Transfer.
'At that time, I made it clear that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe would resist the pipeline due to the historical and ongoing harm caused by infrastructure projects on Indigenous lands,' Archambault wrote.
Archambault said Mahmoud told him that Energy Transfer is used to dealing with protests.
'I let him know I thought this was going to be different,' Archambault wrote.
Greenpeace case in hands of jury as Energy Transfer makes case for $800 million in damages
Warren in his video deposition speculated that Archambault rejected his offer to settle because he had already made a separate deal with a third party. Warren said he suspects someone had paid money to the tribe and that Earthjustice, an environmental law group, was 'the carrier of that money.'
'It was very clear to me he had struck a deal with the devil,' Warren said of Archambault.
Warren acknowledged that he did not have concrete evidence that the deal took place.
'Warren has no evidence of it because it never happened,' Jan Hasselman, a senior attorney for Earthjustice who previously represented the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a statement to the Monitor.
Archambault said that his meeting with Warren 'ended with an understanding that neither side would change course.'
'Energy Transfer would attempt to push the pipeline through, and we would continue to resist,' he wrote.
More Dakota Access Pipeline coverage
Warren's deposition came as part of Energy Transfer's lawsuit against Greenpeace over its involvement in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe started the protests to oppose the project, which it states is a pollution threat to its water and a violation of Native sovereignty. Greenpeace was one of many organizations present at the demonstrations.
In his testimony, Warren said that he was not privy to the day-to-day operations of Energy Transfer at the time of the protests. He said that he had no personal knowledge of Greenpeace's involvement in the demonstrations, and that his legal staff were heading up the lawsuit against the environmental group.
Warren said that it was his understanding that the purpose of the lawsuit was to push back against an organized effort to harm the company, which he said included 'defamation' and 'paid protesters.'
'I did feel strongly that we've got to stand up for ourselves,' Warren said.
Energy Transfer alleges Greenpeace coordinated illegal attacks against the pipeline that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. Greenpeace denies the claims.
The lawsuit, originally filed in 2019, went to trial in Mandan in late February. The parties presented their closing arguments on Monday, though the jury has yet to render a verdict.
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