ABSTRACT
The chapter traces the history and contours of the Dakota Access Pipeline Limited and the opposition to it within the broad context of American oil and oil policies. The personal involvement of the policymakers as well as the energy imperative of the USA have kept the oil issue at the very forefront of its foreign and defence policies. In view of all the controversies, protests and fears that the pipeline had generated, the Company took extra care to keep it as safe as it possibly could. Donald Trump not just reverted the oil policy all the way back to Nixon’s Independence Project but took it a step further to energy dominance. Deregulating the fossil fuel industry all across the board, the USA has been making a decisive march to energy dominance. The automobile and energy companies enthusiastically marketed shale oil and the politicians supported shale production to protect jobs in their constituencies.
