NAN-F-42
Pipeline
Washington, March 24, 2017 (dpa/NAN) The U.S. State Department issued a presidential permit on Friday authorising TransCanada to build the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Former president Barack Obama had blocked the construction of the pipeline in 2015 after years of review, citing environmental concerns.
However, U.S. President Donald Trump decided to advance construction of the Keystone pipeline, and four days after taking office in January invited TransCanada to reapply.
The completed Keystone XL Pipeline would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands in Alberta to Nebraska in the upper Great Plains, where an existing pipeline would carry the Canadian oil south to refineries in Texas.
The State Department said the permit was signed by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon Jr, who determined that the decision “would serve the national interest.
“This is based on 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.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was Chief Executive of ExxonMobil before joining Trump’s cabinet, had disqualified himself from participating in the pipeline decision to avoid a conflict of interest.
Greenpeace U.S. condemned the decision, accusing Trump of “furiously propping up an obsolete energy system at the behest of his fossil fuel cronies.”
The environmental group vowed to lobby in the financial markets for investors to shun the ill-fated and unnecessary pipeline.
“Keystone was stopped once before, and it will be stopped again,” Greenpeace U.S. said on Twitter.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said the pipeline was an example of the “major infrastructure improvements necessary for a modern economy” and hailed the issuing of the permit.
He accused Obama of “partisan posturing” to block the project.
“The Trump administration’s action “should send a clear message to investors, and important strategic partners like Canada, that things have changed in Washington,” Donohue said.
The existing part of the Keystone pipeline has been in operation since 2010.
The proposed expansion would be 1,900 km long and carry up to 830,000 barrels a day.
“This is a significant milestone for the Keystone XL project,” TransCanada president and chief executive Russ Girling said.
The company said that there are regulatory hurdles facing the project.
It vowed to engage key stakeholders and neighbours throughout Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota to obtain the necessary permits and approvals to advance this project to construction. (dpa/NAN)
OYE/HA
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu