President Donald Trump took steps to advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines while foreshadowing a “renegotiation” of terms and insisting that developers use U.S. steel.
Trump stopped short of green-lighting construction on either project, and reiterated an earlier campaign pledge to seek a “better deal” on TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL to transport Alberta oil sands crude into the U.S. On Tuesday, Trump called that “something that’s been in dispute and subject to a renegotiation of terms by us.”
“We are going to renegotiate some of the terms, and if they like, we’ll see if we can get that pipeline built,” Trump said. “If we’re going to build pipelines in the United States, the pipes should be made in the United States.”
The Dakota Access pipeline, too, is “subject to terms and conditions to be negotiated by us,” Trump told reporters while signing measures to advance both projects in the Oval Office.
The moves, taken on Trump’s fourth full day in office, are a major departure from the Obama administration, which rejected the Keystone proposal in 2015 and has kept Dakota Access blocked since September. Environmentalists, concerned about climate change and damage to waters, land and Native-American cultural sites, now face an executive branch that’s less sympathetic to their efforts. For the oil industry, it heralds more freedom to expand infrastructure and ease transportation bottlenecks.
TransCanada climbed as much as 3.1 percent and was trading up 2.4 percent at 12:37 p.m. in New York. Energy Transfer Equity LP and Energy Transfer Partners LP, the developers of the Dakota project, climbed as much as 4 percent and 4.8 percent, respectively.
TransCanada had no immediate comment on the president’s actions before they were announced, and Energy Transfer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. About half of the project was set to be built with steel fabricated in the U.S., according to a 2012 breakdown from TransCanada of an earlier version of the project. Roughly a quarter was set to be supplied by Canada, TransCanada said at the time, with Italy and India providing the rest.
The documents signed Tuesday include a directive Trump said would expedite environmental reviews and approvals for “high-priority infrastructure projects.”
“We intend to fix our country, our bridges our roadways,” Trump said. “We can’t be in an environmental process for 15 years if a bridge is going to be falling down or if a highway is crumbling.”
Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, said he was “pleased to see the new direction being taken by this administration to recognize the importance of our nation’s energy infrastructure by restoring the rule of law in the permitting process that’s critical to pipelines and other infrastructure projects.”
Canada has not received any formal notice of action by Trump on the pipelines but still supports Keystone, a project for which Canadian approvals remain in place.
“We believe it’s a good project for Canada and the United States and we are very hopeful” it will proceed, Canada Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said.
The Standing Rock tribe that opposes the Dakota project said it “will take legal action to fight” Trump’s action, terming it a “politically motivated decision” that “violates the law.”
“President Trump is legally required to honor our treaty rights and provide a fair and reasonable pipeline process,” said Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “The existing pipeline route risks infringing on our treaty rights, contaminating our water and the water of 17 million Americans downstream.”
Dakota Access opponents say the pipeline would damage sites culturally significant to Native Americans and pose an environmental hazard where it crosses the Missouri River. Earlier this month, the Department of the Army withheld the final easement necessary for construction beneath the lake.
Energy Transfer has argued it went through the full permitting process and has the necessary approvals. The company has said the line will be in service in the first quarter of this year, a delay from its original expectations that Dakota Access would be operational by the end of 2016.
Swift approval of Dakota Access could reinvigorate the sometimes violent protests at the site of the proposed construction.
“A powerful alliance of indigenous communities, ranchers, farmers, and climate activists stopped the Keystone pipeline the first time, and the same alliance will come together to stop Keystone again if Trump tries to raise it from the dead,” said Travis Nichols, a spokesman with Greenpeace.
It wasn’t immediately clear what mechanism Trump was using to accelerate Dakota Access and Keystone XL. But Trump’s advisers have urged the new president to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to grant an easement that would allow construction of the final portion of Dakota Access, reversing the Obama administration’s conclusion that more environmental scrutiny was needed.
Trump nears high court pick
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has narrowed his choice to fill the Supreme Court vacancy to three judges and said he expects to make his decision in the coming days.
A person familiar with the selection process said the three judges, all white men who sit on federal appeals courts, were on the list of 21 potential high court picks Trump announced during the presidential campaign.
The leading contenders – who all have met with Trump – are William Pryor, Neil Gorsuch and Thomas Hardiman, the person said, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly about internal decisions.
Pryor, 54, is an Alabama-based judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Gorsuch, 49, is on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hardiman, 51, is based in Pittsburgh for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. All three were nominated by President George W. Bush for their current posts.
Trump has promised to seek someone in the mold of conservative icon Antonin Scalia, who died nearly a year ago after serving on the Supreme Court for more than 29 years. Senate Republicans prevented President Barack Obama from filling the seat, a political gamble that paid off when Trump was elected.
