(AFP) – US President Donald Trump on Monday called for the revival of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project opposed by environmental activists that was blocked under his predecessor Joe Biden. Biden formally rescinded a permit for the pipeline — first proposed in 2008 — by executive order on his first day in office in January 2021 over environmental concerns, reversing course from Trump during his first term.
While the project had long been backed by Canada, Keystone XL had been opposed by environmentalists and Indigenous groups, who organized rallies against it in Washington, Ottawa, and in other affected areas. “The company building the Keystone XL Pipeline that was viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden Administration should come back to America, and get it built — NOW!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, referring to the Canadian company involved in the project.
The company, TC Energy, had argued that bringing so much oil from friendly, neighboring Canada would reduce US dependence on oil from more adversarial countries. The 1,210-mile (1,950-kilometer) pipeline, part of which was completed, was to transport up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from the Alberta oil sands to Nebraska, which then would travel through an existing system to refineries in coastal Texas.
Canadian regulators approved the project in 2010, but it was then blocked by US president Barack Obama in 2015 due to environmental concerns — a decision that his successor Trump reversed in 2017.
© 2024 AFP
