Shailene Woodley is channeling her activist side to keep Bernie Sanders’ message alive — even after he’s dropped out of the presidential race — particularly when it comes to the environment.
Since February, the “Divergent” star has been speaking out against the Bakken pipeline, also known as the Dakota Access pipeline, along with Sanders’ supporters and fellow actresses Susan Sarandon and Rosario Dawson — all of whom traveled to Philadelphia last month to protest at the Democratic National Convention.
Woodley headlined a rally against the Dakota Access pipeline in Washington Wednesday, where she slammed the “hypocrisy” in the Democratic Party. In an interview with CNN on Facebook Live, she said that while Democrats claim to support the environment, their policies prove otherwise.
“Bernie Sanders was the only presidential candidate who said we have to do something about fracking now. We have to do something about piplelines now. We have to do something about climate change now,” Woodley said.
Sanders spoke out against the Bakken pipeline in November 2015, but Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has not addressed the issue. CNN reached out to the Clinton campaign for comment on the issue and have not yet received a response.
The rally took place outside the US District Court, where tribal leaders have filed a lawsuit last month to challenge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits in four states to build the pipeline, which would transport crude oil from the Bakken region in North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois.
“When the pipeline breaks because all pipelines break, a large amount of crude oil would spill into the Missouri River and sacrifice not only the water of the people living on Standing Rock reservation,” Woodley said, “but it would also compromise the water of 18 million people in our country who depend on the Missouri (River) for tap water, for drinking water, for shower water.”
Woodley said that clean water has become a privilege in America, referencing lead poisoning in cases like Flint, Michigan.
“I live a privileged life so I have access to clean water. A lot of people in our country do not live privileged lives and do not have access to clean water,” she said.
Woodley, who is set to play Edward Snowden’s girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, in Oliver Stone’s upcoming drama, “Snowden,” said that it was Sanders who inspired her to become politically active.
“I was anti-political and when Bernie Sanders came into the scene .. what he made me realize was that all issues I care about are political. Clean water is now a political issue, even thought it shouldn’t be,” Woodley said, adding, “If you told me a year ago that I would be talking at rallies — political rallies, that I would be endorsing a candidate, that I would know political words, I would have laughed at you.”
But now that Sanders is out of race Woodley won’t say who she’s voting for in November.
“Moving forward into November I’m not going to answer questions about who I’m gonna vote for or what that looks like right now, but I will say, I’m going to do every single thing I can to register voters, to keep people politically engaged because when people show up to the polls, that’s when the difference is made,” Woodley said.
