Despite the big promises of Trump and pipeline promoters, Keystone XL still isn’t spanning the nation to bring Canadian sludge to the Gulf. Instead the pipeline still faces a series of state approvals before it can be built. More importantly, it faces a declining market and a lack of any demand from the market.
In March, Donald Trump gloated over affixing his scrawl to an executive order approving the Keystone XL pipeline.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump officially announced the approval shortly after the State Department issued TransCanada's permit, making good on one of his campaign promises. The approval greenlights the Canadian company to complete construction on the pipeline that will funnel crude oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Trump promised jobs, jobs, jobs, from a pipeline built using American steel to bring us a bounty of (imported) oil and ...
"It's a great day for jobs and energy independence," Trump said, calling the pipeline "incredible" and "the greatest technology known to man or woman."
As oil prices have sagged, many companies have shelved expansion plans. Others, such as Royal Dutch Shell, which had been ready to commit to using the Keystone XL earlier, have sold their oil sands interests altogether.
Fracking in the United States has resulted in a overabundance of US oil and gas. That’s made Canadian tar sands not just unnecessary, but a high cost alternative due to the amount of energy it takes to mine, free, and process the heavy toxic goo. Even if the pipeline existed, there’s no market demand to fill it.
And while Donald Trump might have waved a “green light,” that didn’t clear possible obstacles. States still have to sign off on the pipeline, and even some solid red states simply aren’t that interested.
TransCanada still needs to win the approval of state regulators. This week they got a taste of how difficult that could be as the Public Service Commission kicked off public hearings in Nebraska, the state where opposition to the $8 billion pipeline project has been strongest. ...
Nebraska might be TransCanada’s biggest obstacle. The pipeline, first proposed more than eight years ago, has touched a populist nerve and aroused concerns that a leak could contaminate farm land and pasture, the delicate Sandhills, or water supplies.
Trump’s reason for loving the pipeline is clear enough: Obama opposed it, so he has to favor it. But Trump voters aren’t as ready to sign on when the world’s most technically advanced sludge straw runs through their backyards.
Many farmers and ranchers are angered by the idea of a foreign pipeline company using eminent domain, which the 2016 Republican Party platform criticized, to force them into letting large construction equipment plow a 50-foot-wide right of way to bury the pipeline about four feet below the surface.
No jobs. No oil. No support. Surely they can find a better name for this pipeline. After all, Trump loves to put his name on things.