President ushers in ‘new era of American energy policy’ Friday as environmental activists denounce revived oil pipeline as a ‘disaster for the planet’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Donald Trump announced a “new era of American energy policy” as he signed the presidential permit allowing TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline.

“It’s going to be an incredible pipeline. Greatest technology known to man. Or woman. And frankly, we’re very proud of it,” said Trump in the Oval Office on Friday morning.

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which had been suspended after years of opposition by environmental and Native American activists and others, would carry 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil from the fields in Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would meet another Keystone pipeline to send the oil to refineries on the gulf coast.

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Activist groups vowed that the pipeline project would not be resurrected and said Trump did not understand the process to restart it.

“Game on,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of the environmental advocacy group 350.org, in a conference call with reporters. “The fight will be very real, and very intense. There are millions and millions of Americans who are committed to ensuring the Keystone Pipeline never gets built.

“The president, as he approved this thing this morning, as he issued the permit, he turned to the CEO of the Canadian company to build it and said: ‘When does construction start?’

“And the actual answer to that is, never. This project is going to be fought at every turn.”

In his Oval Office appearance, Trump was told that in order to move forward, the project still would need a state permit issued by Nebraska, which the pipeline would cross. The president responded that the state governor, Pete Ricketts, the scion of a billionaire family of prominent Republican donors, is “a fantastic governor, I’ll call him today”.

But Jane Kleeb, president of the activist group Bold Alliance, told reporters that the governor did not control the permitting process, and that the approval of five elected commissioners in Nebraska would be required to move it forward.

“[Trump] is so arrogant to think that a phone call to Governor Ricketts would somehow grant and green-light this project in our state,” Kleeb said. “News flash to President Trump: Governor Ricketts actually has no role in the permitting process in Nebraska.”

In his Oval Office appearance, Trump addressed Russ Girling, the president and CEO of TransCanada, joking about the years of delays the project has faced because of strong objections from local community and environmental grassroots protests against the pipeline.

“I hope you don’t pay your consultants anything because they had nothing to do with the approval. In fact, you should ask for your hundreds of millions of dollars back that you pay them because they didn’t do a damn thing except give you a no vote, right?” quipped Trump.

The president also seemed surprised by some details of the announcement, exclaiming “Wow!” when reading out a statement that the pipeline would be 900 miles long.

The state department says it is confident that building the pipeline serves the US national interest. That is the opposite conclusion to the one the state department reached during the Obama administration.

“In making his determination that issuance of this permit would serve the national interest, the under secretary considered a range of factors, including but not limited to foreign policy; energy security; environmental, cultural and economic impacts; and compliance with applicable law and policy,” the department said, according to the Hill website.

The remarks contrasted sharply with Barack Obama’s comments in November 2015, when he rejected the Keystone XL deal after seven years of political debate and grassroots campaigning.

“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action on climate change,” declared Obama then.

“Frankly, approving that project would have undercut that global leadership, and that is the biggest risk we face: not acting.”

The pipeline is to run over the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground reservoir in the Great Plains that provides water access to millions, including several Native American tribes.

Environmental activists condemned Trump’s plan. .

The author and activist Naomi Klein, a longtime Keystone opponent, called it “a disaster for the planet” in a statement:

“This is no surprise coming from a State Department headed by a man who was CEO of Exxon until a couple of months ago, and from a White House for whom digging up planet-destabilizing carbon is the centrepiece of its jobs plan, despite the fact that renewables and energy efficiency have the capacity to create exponentially more jobs.”

Klein went on to note the hypocritical actions of liberal Canadian politicians involved in approving the project: “A greater scandal is that Keystone’s approval has been cheered on by the Liberal prime minister of Canada and the social democratic premier of Alberta, both of whom position themselves as bold climate leaders. And both of whom have collaborated to win the approval of two other tar sands pipeline projects in the past few months: Enbridge’s Line 3 and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion.”

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Although the state department noted the economic impact in its decision, the project will result in only 35 permanent jobs after initial construction.

The permit was signed by Tom Shannon, a career diplomat serving as under secretary of state for political affairs. That is because secretary of state Rex Tillerson recused himself due to his previous work running Exxon Mobil.

Just four weeks after Obama halted the Keystone XL pipeline, the US joined nearly 200 countries in pledging to cut carbon emissions in the historic Paris climate deal.

Throughout the election campaign, Trump promised to withdraw the US from the Paris accord, although in late November he said he had an “open mind” about the plan.

