President Biden Revokes Keystone XL Project Permit

President Biden’s first day in office included a range of executive actions, including revoking a permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Elected officials from both countries have noted that this decision would damage the Canada-US bilateral relationship entirely.

The $9 billion project was planning to move 830,000 barrels of crude oil daily from the province of Alberta to Nebraska. Jason Kenney, the 18th Premier of Alberta, had tweeted his concerns shortly before President Biden had revoked the permit and argued that it would kill jobs on both sides of the border, weaken the critically important Canada-US relationship, and undermine U.S national security by making us more dependent on OPEC oil imports in the future.

“As President-elect Biden’s green jobs plan acknowledges, Americans will consume millions of barrels of oil per day for years to come. It is in perfect keeping with his plan that the United States energy needs should be met by a country that takes the challenges of climate change seriously. The Keystone XL pipeline also represents tens of thousands of good-paying jobs that the American economy needs right now. That is why major American labor unions who supported President-elect Biden’s campaign strongly back the project, as do First Nations who have signed partnership agreements, and all state governments along the pipeline route,” Kenney writes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has also argued that the project will help reduce reliance on foreign oil imports and create new jobs. Canada has been considered as the United States’ most important trading partner and ally for strengthening independence regarding energy, the environment, and the economy through this project. President Biden has long planned on stopping the Keystone project, indicating last May that he had supported former President Obama’s decision to delay the project in 2015 and would “proudly stand in the Roosevelt Room again as president and stop it for good.” In former President Trump’s first week in office in 2017, he had lifted Obama’s order to halt activity on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Others also pointed out that if the Biden Administration cared about American independence and exceptionalism, then they wouldn’t have to watch this great work be unraveled. They argued that canceling the project did nothing but kill thousands of jobs and continue to raise energy prices for a radical left base.

Alternative pipelines could provide slower routes to other markets, like those in China and India. In 2014, Valero oil spokesperson Bill Day pointed out that Obama canceling the project could cut the U.S out as the middleman and go straight to Asia. “It’s going to come out of the ground, it’s going to get processed. We think it would probably be better to be processed here under our environmental rules rather than China,” Day said.

If canceling the project meant all things to China, then-President Biden might have a plan after all. We all know the Biden family loves to cozy up with China.