Michael Brune

President Trump’s attempt to resurrect the ill-conceived Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects is bad business, even worse energy and climate policy, and against the best interests of the American people. The canard that they would generate significant jobs is just another “alternative fact.” In the real world, by making it easier to export oil to foreign markets, these projects would make energy more expensive for Americans.

The beneficiaries are the oil companies. Those harmed or placed at risk include millions of Americans: property owners whose land would be seized by eminent domain; millions who depend on safe, clean drinking water from the aquifers and waterways the pipelines would cross; and, of course, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who are fighting to protect both their sole source of water and their sacred, ancestral lands.

Trump revives pipeline projects: Our view

To claim that pipelines are “inevitable” is inexcusably cynical and defeatist when the climate crisis demands an energy policy that cuts carbon pollution as fast as possible. To invest in infrastructure that would encourage more extraction and burning of dirty tar sands and shale oil is short-sighted, reckless and irresponsible, particularly when the economics of clean energy would allow us to keep those dirty fuels in the ground.

Fortunately, these pipelines are far from being in the clear. The millions of Americans and hundreds of tribes that have stood up to block them will not be silenced.

The notice requiring the environmental impact statement for the Dakota Access pipeline was entered into the Federal Register earlier this month. President Trump’s actions do not reverse that. The Keystone project still does not have all of the required state-level permits, and property owners will fight to stop TransCanada from stealing their land for a dirty project.

Keystone was rejected because it was not in the country’s interest, and the environmental review of the Dakota Access pipeline was ordered because of the threats posed to the Standing Rock Sioux. Those are the facts, and they cannot be changed by signing a paper.

Michael Brune is executive director of the Sierra Club.