FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2016, file photo, heavy equipment is seen at a site where sections of the Dakota Access Pipeline were being buried near the town of St. Anthony in Morton County, N.D. The Army has notified Congress Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, completing the four-state project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois. The Army intends to allow the crossing under Lake Oahe as early as Wednesday, Feb. 8. The crossing is the final big chunk of work on the pipeline. (Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 5, 2016, file photo, heavy equipment is seen at a site where sections of the Dakota Access Pipeline were being buried near the town of St. Anthony in Morton County, N.D. The Army has notified Congress Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2017, that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, completing the four-state project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois. The Army intends to allow the crossing under Lake Oahe as early as Wednesday, Feb. 8. The crossing is the final big chunk of work on the pipeline. (Tom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP, File) Credit: Tom Stromme

Washington — The deputy assistant secretary of the Army will grant the final permit needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Army declared in a court filing on Tuesday, clearing the massive infrastructure project’s last bureaucratic hurdle.

The Army’s intention to grant a 30-year easement under North Dakota’s Lake Oahe was immediately hailed by congressional Republicans and decried by members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other opponents.

In documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia as part of an ongoing review of the controversial pipeline, Army officials indicated that they were terminating a plan to prepare an environmental impact statement on how the pipeline would affect land and water along the project’s 1,170-mile route.

The move, which comes two weeks after President Donald Trump instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an expedited review of the easement, underscores the new administration’s intent to spur infrastructure development and support the fossil fuel industry.

Both during the presidential campaign and since taking office, Trump has spoken of the need to accelerate domestic energy production and the construction of pipelines that can bring oil and gas to market.

While couched in dry language — a letter from Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Paul Cramer to Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., details the 7.37 acres the pipeline would cross on federal property — the decision marks a major blow to activists who had come from across the country last year and gathered on the Standing Rock’s windswept reservation. There, they declared, a tribe and its allies would defy the federal government.

The project would cross four states and carry crude oil from the rich shale oil basins of western North Dakota to the pipeline networks and refineries in the Midwest. Opponents argue that the pipeline could damage the environment and disturb ancient burial grounds.

Construction cannot begin until the easement is granted, which Cramer wrote will be given to the pipeline’s sponsor, Energy Transfer Partners, no later than this afternoon.

The section of the project running underneath Lake Oahe is one of the final parts to be built, and it could be operational between 60 and 80 days after construction starts.

In the wake of the Army’s decision, confrontations between activists and law enforcement at the site could flare anew. Although tribal leaders have urged their supporters to go home as the weather gets worse, a few hundred protesters have remained.