Thursday, March 18, 2021

XL pipeline goes to court

Attorneys-general from 21 states filed lawsuits Wednesday seeking to overturn United States President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

The leaders are Ken Paxton of Texas and Austin Knudsen of Montana,. They claim that Biden lacked sufficient authority when he revoked the permit for the Keystone pipeline on his first day in office.

Because the line would run through multiple U.S. states, Congress should have the final say over whether it’s built, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Texas.

Construction on the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometre) pipeline began last year when former president Donald Trump revived the long-delayed project after it had stalled under the Obama administration.

It would move up to 830,000 barrels (35 million gallons) of crude daily from the oil sand fields of western Canada to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would connect to other pipelines that feed oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Biden argued that oilsands crude would make climate change worse.

Some moderate Democratic lawmakers also have urged Biden to reverse his decision, including Senators  Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana.