Native American tribes in Montana and South Dakota sued the Trump administration on Monday, claiming it approved an oil pipeline from Canada without considering potential damage to cultural sites from spills and construction. Attorneys for the Rosebud Sioux tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Reservation asked US District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls, Montana, to rescind the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, issued last year by the US State Department.

The tribes argue President Donald Trump brushed aside their rights and put their members at risk when he reversed President Barack Obama's rejection of the USD 8 billion TransCanada Corp. project. The line would carry up to 830,000 barrels (35 million gallons) of crude daily along a 1,900-kilometer) path from Canada to Nebraska. The route passes through the ancestral homelands of the Rosebud Sioux in central South Dakota and the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes in Montana.