Montana pays $60k to settle public records case over pipeline docs
HELENA (AP) — The state of Montana has paid more than $60,000 to the ACLU of Montana to settle a case over its refusal to release documents related to the state's preparations for anticipated protests against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline that was to cross northeastern Montana.
State records show the settlement between the Division of Criminal Justice, the Department of Disaster and Emergency Services and the ACLU was approved last September, the Montana State News Bureau reported. The case was dismissed in October.
The payment covered the ACLU's attorney's fees and court costs.
The ACLU sued in February 2020 after records it requested in 2018 were provided in heavily redacted form, while other documents were withheld without legal justification, the ACLU said. The state attempted to place a gag order on the information it did provide, the ACLU said.
The ACLU alleged that public records requests it filed with federal agencies in 2018 showed that Montana's Division of Criminal Investigation and Disaster and Emergency Services were working with federal and local agencies to clamp down on potential protests over the now-defunct Keystone XL project.
Indigenous groups and other opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline in nearby North Dakota staged large protests during a six-month span starting in 2016 that resulted in the arrests of 761 people.
The Montana Department of Justice, which handled the state's defense in the public records case, argued the documents being sought qualified as "confidential criminal justice information," which are exempt from disclosure under Montana's right-to-know laws.
The state initially released fewer than 50 pages of emails and other documents related to the ACLU request, but after litigation in 2020 and 2021, the state eventually released hundreds of documents it had previously withheld, ACLU attorney Alex Rate said.
The documents that were eventually released showed coordination between law enforcement in Montana and TransCanada — now TC Energy — the company behind the Keystone XL proposal. Emails also showed private security contractors working for TransCanada attended training and provided presentations to law enforcement and other government officials in 2017 and 2018, as plans for the pipeline were being made.
"Documents that are at one time confidential criminal justice information may be later deemed public information if their release will not jeopardize the integrity of criminal investigations or ongoing law enforcement efforts," said Emilee Cantrell, DOJ spokesperson.
"Releasing the documents at the time the ACLU sought them could have compromised law enforcement efforts and put the public at risk," she said.
The Keystone XL pipeline was approved by the Trump administration in 2017, after the Obama administration shelved it due to environmental concerns. The pipeline was proposed to ship oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in the United States.
The Biden administration rejected the proposal for the pipeline last year. A coalition of state attorneys general challenged Biden's decision in court, but a federal judge in January dismissed the lawsuit, citing a brief filed by TC Energy stating that the project was dead. TC Energy had said in June 2021 that it was ending the project.