The Keystone XL pipeline, the proposed massive duct that would have carried crude oil from Canada to the United States, has officially been canceled.
“It marks a historic victory for environmentalists who for a decade have made Keystone XL the focus of a campaign to block new pipeline construction as a way to limit oil consumption that contributes to global warming,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
TC Energy, the Keystone XL’s developer, announced in a statement Wednesday that it had terminated the proposed pipeline project. The termination comes nearly five months after President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL’s American permit.
- “Construction activities to advance the project were suspended following the revocation of its Presidential Permit on Jan. 20, 2021,” TC Energy said in a statement Wednesday. “The company will continue to coordinate with regulators, stakeholders and Indigenous groups to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments and ensure a safe termination of and exit from the project.”
- Francois Poirier, TC Energy president and chief executive, said the company remains grateful for its partnership with Indigenous groups, governments and other organizations that had supported the project.
- “Through the process, we developed meaningful Indigenous equity opportunities and a first-of-its-kind, industry leading plan to operate the pipeline with net-zero emissions throughout its lifecycle. We will continue to identify opportunities to apply this level of ingenuity across our business going forward, including our current evaluation of the potential to power existing U.S. assets with renewable energy,” Poirier said.
The now scrapped pipeline — which began construction in 2020 — would have stretched 1,200 miles from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, where it would have been connected to pipelines that lead to Gulf Coast oil refineries, Indian Country Today reported.
Keystone XL would have cost $8 billion and, once operational, would have brought 830,000 daily barrels of Canadian crude to the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal.
Biden revokes Keystone permit
On his first day in the Oval Office, President Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline’s construction and operations permit with an executive order, saying in his Jan. 20 executive order that pipeline “disserves the U.S. national interest.”
- “Climate change has had a growing effect on the U.S. economy, with climate-related costs increasing over the last 4 years. Extreme weather events and other climate-related effects have harmed the health, safety and security of the American people and have increased the urgency for combatting climate change and accelerating the transition toward a clean energy economy,” Biden wrote in January.
- “The United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership in order to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway. Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my administration’s economic and climate imperatives,” the president added.
Indian Country Today reported that Keystone XL “has been front and center of the fight against climate change, especially in Indigenous communities.”
- “After more than 10 years of organizing we have finally defeated an oil giant, Keystone XL is dead! We are dancing in our hearts because of this victory!,” said the Indigenous Environment Network in a statement.
- “From Dene territories in Northern Alberta to Indigenous lands along the Gulf of Mexico, we stood hand-in-hand to protect the next seven generations of life, the water and our communities from this dirty tar sands pipeline,” the IEN wrote.