Kelcy Warren, executive chairman of Energy Transfer. (Mike McCleary/Bismarck Tribune via the North Dakota Monitor)
(. North Dakota Monitor) – Energy Transfer Executive Chairman Kelcy Warren claimed in court testimony he traveled to North Dakota in December 2016 to discuss a settlement with then-tribal chair David Archambault II to end protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“I said, ‘David, I’m here to make a deal with you,’” Warren said in a video deposition shown to jurors last week during a trial involving Energy Transfer and Greenpeace. “‘What do you want? Money? Land?’”
Warren, who was CEO of Energy Transfer at the time, said he was willing to give the tribe a ranch that the company had purchased near part of the pipeline construction site in North Dakota. Energy Transfer just months prior had bought Cannonball Ranch, which is north of Standing Rock in an area that became the center of the anti-pipeline demonstrations.
Warren said he also offered to build a new school on the reservation.
