TransCanada announced that the Trump State Department approved a permit for the authorization for construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. | Getty Trump administration greenlights Keystone Pipeline

Declaring “a new era of American energy,” the Trump administration approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline Friday in a sharp reversal of one of Barack Obama's most controversial environmental decisions.

President Donald Trump called the oil pipeline’s cross-border permit "long overdue" and said his administration would follow it with other infrastructure projects soon.


"This announcement is part of a new era of American energy policy that will lower costs for American families, and very significantly," Trump in the Oval Office, where he was flanked by the head of pipeline company TransCanada, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and representatives of trade unions.

TransCanada still needs approval for the pipeline's route through Nebraska from state regulators there, a process that could take several more months — a factor Trump appeared unaware of on Friday.

"So the bottom line: Keystone finished. We're going to start construction when?" Trump asked TransCanada CEO Russ Girling, who replied the company had "some work" to do in Nebraska.

"Nebraska?" Trump replied. "I'll call Nebraska."

During the presidential campaign, Trump had promised to approve the pipeline as part of a plan to boost U.S. energy production. And just days after taking office, Trump set a 60-day deadline for the State Department to decide whether to issue the permit for the project, which would run nearly 1,200 miles across the U.S. and connect the oil sands fields in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Trump said the years-long fight over the project "demonstrates how our government has too often failed its citizens and companies over the past long period of time. Today we begin to make things right and to do things right. Today we take one more step in putting the jobs, wages and economic security of Americans first."

The Obama administration had cited environmental concerns in rejecting the permit in 2015. That decision came after a massive, seven-year opposition campaign by environmental groups that turned the pipeline into a symbol of their fight against expanding the use of fossils fuels blamed for causing climate change.

Trump chided Girling, saying all the company's previous lobbying had been in vain. "In fact, you should ask for your hundreds of millions back because they didn't do a damn thing except get you a 'no' vote," he said.

In a statement, Trump's State Department said it had considered foreign policy implications of the decision, as well as the nation's energy security and the environmental, cultural, and economic impacts.

But the State Department said it relied on previous environmental studies into the possible environmental effects of Keystone. The 30-page explanation the department gave for its new decision refers constantly to findings from the earlier Obama-era report with no new material outside of communications from TransCanada.

Green groups are hoping that could open the permit up to litigation, said the Natural Resources Defense Council's Canada Project director, Anthony Swift.

“This decision doesn't seem to have been made with a great deal of thoroughness," Swift said. "One would hope there would be a significant paper trail supporting their decision, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. State seems to have been put in a position that they would have to use the same information to reach an opposite conclusion. ”

The oil industry hailed the news of the permit, with Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, saying the Keystone pipeline had been studied more than any other pipeline project in U.S. history. He said the project "is critical to creating American jobs, growing the economy, and making our nation more energy secure.”

TransCanada also said it will now drop the $15 billion NAFTA complaint that it filed last year. That complaint sought to recoup the money the company had spent on developing the pipeline before the Obama administration blocked the project.

"We greatly appreciate President Trump’s administration for reviewing and approving this important initiative and we look forward to working with them as we continue to invest in and strengthen North America’s energy infrastructure,” Girling said in a statement.

Trump did not mention his earlier statements that the pipeline should be made with U.S.- sourced steel. He had touted that requirement as recently as Monday, telling a rally in Kentucky he would require TransCanada to use American-made steel to build the U.S.-side of the pipeline, despite the White House’s admission earlier this month that it would not hold Keystone XL to that standard.

A group of 15 lawmakers joined a letter that Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill. ) sent to Trump, calling on him to make TransCanada buy more U.S.-made steel for its pipeline.

“Time and again we’ve heard that the American people would be better served if the federal government had better negotiators,” Bustos wrote in her letter. “Now, as our country’s chief executive and lead negotiator, it appears you are allowing a deal to go forward while reversing on what you’ve called the ‘core principles’ for American infrastructure investment.”