The controversial project to construct a pipeline that would send oil from the tar sands of Canada into Nebraska—which was fully backed by former President Donald Trump—has officially been canceled.
The process of ceasing the project began in January when President Biden revoked its permit, giving hope to environmentalists as well as the many Native tribes who contested the project from the start.
“The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih) Tribes) in coordination with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, on September 10, 2018, sued the Trump Administration for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL pipeline permitting process,” according to NARF.
The path of the pipeline is on sacred land for Native tribes, and the construction of the pipeline posed a danger to a clean water source for the people living in those areas.
In reality, the pipeline was unnecessary and a menace to the current climate crisis.
Who opposed the cancellation?
Now that TC Energy Group, the Canadian company behind the project, has canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, certain groups and stakeholders are disgruntled.
The American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group of the oil and gas industry had their money on the success of the full construction of the pipeline.
“It's unfortunate that political obstructionism led to the termination of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” Robin Rorick, vice president of midstream and industry operations at the API, told CNN. “This is a blow to U.S. energy security and a blow to the thousands of good-paying union jobs this project would have supported.”
What does this mean for the future?
Image Credit / Tim Gruber for the New York Times
According to an article in the New York Times, environmental activists cheered the move and used the moment to urge Mr. Biden to rescind the Trump-era permits granted to another pipeline, the Enbridge Line 3, which would carry Canadian oil across Minnesota. Hundreds of protesters were arrested earlier this week while protesting that project.
The cancellation of the Keystone XL Pipeline may be a catalyst for change regarding other pipelines and even spark meaningful conversations around human rights, climate change and the economy.
This decision is a landmark victory for indigenous communities and a tremendous step in the right direction.
