Among many executive actions signed on Inauguration Day to sweep Trump policies out the door along with the man himself, President Biden rescinded approval for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Keystone XL, according to Biden’s top climate policy adviser Gina McCarthy, “was not consistent with addressing the climate crisis to the depth and scope that we are planning to address it.”
Keystone XL has now played the role of political football for a full decade, and Americans can be forgiven for having forgotten the project’s details.
Keystone XL is a pipeline to move heavy crude from the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The Keystone system, not to be confused with the Dakota Access Pipeline of 2016 protest notoriety, transits in a generally north-to-south direction through the Great Plains. At Steele City, Nebraska, the system branches, with one portion moving toward southern Illinois and the other continuing through Kansas to Cushing, Oklahoma, whence the crude can be moved on to Port Arthur, Texas. The Keystone system includes over 2,600 miles of pipe and has already safely moved three billion barrels of oil since it began partial operation in 2010.
The segment in question crosses from Canada into the state of Montana and, hence, is subject to presidential permitting at the recommendation of the State Department.
The costs and benefits of completing the project have been discussed ad nauseam since the pipeline company, now known at TC Energy, first filed paperwork in 2008, and at this point very little has been left unsaid on either side of the debate. As was the case when the Obama-era State Department submitted its analysis in 2014, the pipeline project would be an economic positive while causing little in the way of additional environmental harms. The argument is simple, straightforward, and convincing enough that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to support it and has urged President Biden to reconsider.
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