President Trump reportedly aims to revive the Keystone XL oil pipeline on day one of his administration.

The Biden administration revoked a critical permit needed for a U.S. stretch of the 1,200-mile project in 2021.

Trump initially approved the project in 2017, POLITICO reports.

The outlet cited three people familiar with Trump’s plan on reviving the project.

“It’s on the list of things they want to do first day,” one individual said, according to POLITICO.

“Why does Biden go in and kill the Keystone Pipeline and approve the single biggest deal that Russia’s ever made Nord Stream 2?” Trump asked during one of the presidential debates against Kamala Harris.

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From POLITICO:

But Trump’s renewed interest in the pipeline faces a sharply different reality now than existed than when he first entered office.

The pipeline’s permit to cross the U.S.-Canadian border was first rejected in 2015 by President Barack Obama. Trump in 2017 reversed that decision and approved the border crossing — only to have that decision revoked by Biden in January 2021. After that, TC Energy, the pipeline’s developer, said it would no longer pursue its construction.

Calgary-based TC Energy no longer owns the pipeline system that the Keystone XL was intended to complement. And the portions of the pipeline that TC Energy had put in the ground in both Canada and the United States in anticipation of the cross-border permit approval have been dug up. Replacing that pipe would require any company that wants to rebuild it to again obtain local permits for the project.

And since Keystone XL’s demise, U.S. oil output has surged to record levels, making the economic case for the Canadian crude shipments to the Gulf Coast less attractive. Canada’s shipments of oil have reached record levels this year — but those barrels are moving through a recently built link to the West Coast, providing a new outlet for that Alberta crude.

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The Keystone XL oil pipeline was expected to move up to 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil sands crude to Nebraska.

From the Associated Press in 2021:

Biden canceled the pipeline’s border crossing permit in January over longstanding concerns that burning oil sands crude could make climate change worse and harder to reverse.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had objected to the move , raising tensions between the U.S. and Canada. Officials in Alberta, where the line originated, expressed frustration in recent weeks that Trudeau wasn’t pushing Biden harder to reinstate the pipeline’s permit.

Alberta invested more than $1 billion in the project last year, kick-starting construction that had stalled amid determined opposition to the line from environmentalists and Native American tribes along its route.

Alberta officials said Wednesday they reached an agreement with TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada, to exit that partnership. The company and province plan to try to recoup the government’s investment, although neither offered any immediate details on how that would happen.

“We remain disappointed and frustrated with the circumstances surrounding the Keystone XL project, including the cancellation of the presidential permit for the pipeline’s border crossing,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said in a statement.

 

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