President Biden stood firm to Canadian entries and the owner of the Key Stone pipeline said that was enough.
The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline pulled the plug on the contentious project Wednesday after Canadian officials failed to persuade President Joe Biden to reverse his cancellation of its permit. Calgary-based TC Energy said it will work with government agencies “to ensure a safe termination of and exit” from the partially built line, which was to transport crude from the oil sand fields of western Canada to Steele City, Nebraska. Construction on the 1,200-mile pipeline began in 2020 when then-President Donald Trump revived the long-delayed project after it had stalled under the Barack Obama administration. It would have moved as many as 830,000 barrels of crude daily, connecting in Nebraska to other pipelines such as the Bayou Bridge line that feeds oil refineries in Louisiana. Biden canceled the pipeline’s border crossing permit on the day he took office in January. He cited longstanding concerns that burning oil sands crude could make climate change worse and harder to reverse.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had objected to the move, raising tensions between the U.S. and Canada. Officials in Alberta, where the line originated, expressed frustration in recent weeks that Trudeau wasn’t pushing Biden harder to reinstate the pipeline’s permit.
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Alberta had invested more than $1 billion as the had started construction on the pipeline after the earlier stop. They have now exited the project. The opposition was Native tribes and environmental advocates that had protested along the route of the pipeline.
The company and province plan to try to recoup the government’s investment, although neither offered any immediate details on how that would happen. “We remain disappointed and frustrated with the circumstances surrounding the Keystone XL project, including the cancellation of the presidential permit for the pipeline’s border crossing,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said. The province had hoped the pipeline would spur increased development in the oil sands and bring tens of billions of dollars in royalties over decades.
Oil sands were the main topic as they would add to the climate crises when burned. This led to protests not only in Canada but also in the US.
Environmental advocates who had fought the project since it was first announced in 2008 said its cancellation marks a “landmark moment” in the effort to curb the use of fossil fuels. “Good riddance to Keystone XL,” said Jared Margolis of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of many environmental groups that sued to stop it. On Montana’s Fort Belknap Reservation, tribal president Andy Werk Jr. described the end of Keystone as a relief to Native Americans who stood against it out of concerns a line break could foul the Missouri River or other waterways. Attorneys general from 21 states had sued to overturn Biden’s cancellation of the pipeline, which would have created thousands of construction jobs. Republicans in Congress have made the cancellation a frequent talking point in their criticism of the administration. Even some moderate Senate Democrats, including Montana’s Jon Tester and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, had urged Biden to reconsider. Tester said Wednesday that he was disappointed in the project’s demise but made no mention of Biden. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate energy committee, was more direct. “President Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline and with it, thousands of good-paying American jobs,” he said.
To see a map off the pipeline click here. The White House did not respond to the comments.
TC Energy said in canceling the pipeline that the company is focused on meeting “evolving energy demands” as the world transitions to different power sources. It said it has $7 billion in other projects under development. Keystone XL’s price tag had ballooned as the project languished, increasing from $5.4 billion to $9 billion. Meanwhile, oil prices fell significantly – from more than $100 a barrel in 2008 to less than $70 in recent months – slowing development of Canada’s oil sands and threatening to eat into any profits from moving the fuel to refineries.
There are pipelines in Louisiana and check here.
