Months after Dakota Access protests, Dallas' Energy Transfer Partners faces barriers at many turns

After a bruising 2016, there was hope that 2017 would help one of the nation's largest pipeline builders dig out from the heap of national outrage triggered by the controversy over its Dakota Access pipeline. With a light-touch regulatory attitude in Washington, D.C., under President Donald Trump's business-friendly administration, stars had aligned for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners to turn the corner. Yet, with a little over four months left on the calendar, billionaire Kelcy Warren's empire that owns at least 71,000 miles of pipelines is still trying to emerge from the chaos. Some of the company’s biggest projects still face state and federal regulatory roadblocks after spills and other environmental hiccups. Trump introduced a new wrinkle by saying pipelines should be built with U.S. steel. And, the Dakota Access — the 1,172-mile pipeline transporting oil from North Dakota to Illinois — is back in court. Warren, Energy Transfer's chairman and CEO, was not available for an interview request for this report. But he told The Dallas Morning News in January that Dakota protesters "assassinated the company and me."..more