Nearly eight-and-a-half years after its initial application, the Keystone XL pipeline project has been given the green light (“subject to a renegotiation of terms by us”) by an executive order signed by President Trump today. Finally.
Whether the impetus and economics is still there to build it (with oil prices in the mid-$50 barrel range) remains to be seen. But I’d imagine so, if nothing more than as an infrastructural investment in the future.
But from the federal government standpoint, this shouldn’t matter. If private monies want to take the risk, the federal government should not stand in the way. After all, the Keystone XL pipeline passed each and every environmental impact/safety assessment along the way. Even the climate impact, much touted and hyped by the previous Administration and its supporters, was shown, dispassionately, to be inconsequential—a mere 1/100th of a degree of warming by century’s end (and that’s being generous).
President Obama rejected the pipeline for no other reason than for appearances—to make it seem to the rest of the world that the U.S. was serious about climate change. Apparently, he didn’t see the irony.
His successor is resurrecting the pipeline for the same reason—appearances. In this case, the appearance of creating jobs. But as I exasperatingly explained in these