The Obama administration has ordered a halt to construction of part of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, which has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and hundreds of other tribes from across the U.S. and Canada in what’s being described as the largest unification of Native American tribes in decades. In a dramatic series of moves late Friday afternoon, a federal judge rejected the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction against the U.S. government over the pipeline. Then the Army, Department of Justice and Department of the Interior responded with an announcement that the Army Corps will not issue permits for Dakota Access to drill under the Missouri River until the Army Corps reconsiders its previously issued permits. The news was welcomed by the protesters who have gathered along the Cannonball River by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to resist the pipeline’s construction. This is Francine Garreau Hall of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.

Francine Garreau Hall: “I am very grateful, because in our government-to-government relationship, the federal government is bound by treaty law to protect our interests. And I’m glad that they stepped up to the plate today and did that.”

The agencies also asked Dakota Access to voluntarily cease construction 20 miles east and west of the Oahe Dam.