BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota officials appear poised to go after the U.S. government — and thus U.S. taxpayers — to recoup more than $38 million in state expenses related to months of protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, though a long-standing offer from the project's developer to pay up is still on the table.

One taxpayer watchdog group questions why the state isn't jumping at the offer from Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, a company worth billions of dollars.

“You take the money when you can get it,” said Dustin Gawrylow, managing director of the North Dakota Watchdog Network, which keeps tabs on how public money is spent.

The matter might not be that simple. Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that promotes government accountability, says accepting money from a private-sector business in an industry it regulates would present the state with an ethical dilemma.

Pipeline opponents have long accused the state of being too cozy with ETP, and if the state takes the company's money “it certainly would lend credence to those arguments,” said Joye Braun, a protest leader.

“For Energy Transfer to offer a donation, basically that's paying off the state for using state resources as personal security,” she said.