The Dakota Access Pipeline in Illinois: Participation, power, and institutional design in United States critical energy infrastructure governance

The role of participation in US energy governance sits at the heart of ongoing contestation around the crude oil-bearing Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The construction of the 1,172-mile pipeline raised questions about the public's ability to influence energy infrastructure development considered by the US government as “critical” to national security. While numerous scholars and courts have begun to question whether the federal regulatory process that permitted DAPL sufficiently allowed for participation, less work has examined state-level processes. In this article, we ask whether actors who participated in the regulatory process at the state-level had sufficient opportunity to influence the siting, permitting, and construction of DAPL. We focus on Illinois, analyzing the 2015 proceeding by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) to permit DAPL. Drawing on fieldwork between October 2018 and May 2020, we argue the ICC regulatory process minimized the space available for pipeline opposition in three ways. First, the ICC is limited, in an institutional design sense, from integrating broad public opinion into its decision-making process. Second, as a function of its design, pipeline opponents required significant knowledge and resources to mount claims before the ICC. Finally, we contend that politically powerful interest groups, especially labor unions and industry stakeholders, shape pipeline politics in Illinois in ways that further limit avenues for formal opposition. Our work raises important questions about the impact of public participation in contemporary energy and environmental governance, as well as how democratic contestation surrounding oil pipelines can open space for resistance and transformative social change.