Daily Digest: Pipeline project blocked
Good morning and happy Monday. Welcome to the first full week of December. Here's the Digest.
1. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday it would not grant an easement necessary to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline and would instead consider alternate routes. The announcement was seen as a victory by thousands of people who have been camped out near the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota in protest of the $3.8 billion project. They say it wound endanger drinking water and Indian cultural sites. Supporters of the pipeline project say the decision probably means just a temporary halt, because President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants it completed. (MPR News)
2. Several likely contenders for the Republican nomination for Minnesota Governor in 2018 addressed the party faithful at a central committee meeting Saturday. The event was a chance for Republicans to celebrate their election advances last month and look ahead to the possibility of taking complete control of state government in the next election. (MPR News)
3. Democrats, meanwhile, are still trying to figure out what went wrong. The DFL lost seats in the Minnesota House and lost control of the Senate, a first for a presidential election year in recent memory. They're pointing to Hillary Clinton's weakness among rural voters, but Democrats also lost House seats in the suburbs where Clinton ran relatively strong. (Star Tribune)
4. Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday that he would impose a 35 percent tariff on goods produced by companies that move jobs out of the U.S. and try to sell their products here. That's a different approach than the financial incentives he provided last week to keep some jobs in Indiana that Carrier had planned to move to Mexico. It also stands traditional Republican economic policy on its head. (Washington Post)
5. Senate Democrats are considering delaying confirmation of Donald Trump's Cabinet picks. The strategy would be designed to slow his momentum during his first 100 days in office and do some payback to Senate Republicans for sitting on President Obama's choice for Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. “They’ve been rewarded for stealing a Supreme Court justice. We’re going to help them confirm their nominees, many of whom are disqualified?” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “It’s not obstruction, it’s not partisan, it’s just a duty to find out what they’d do in these jobs.” (Politico)
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