Trump gives second life to Keystone XL, Dakota Access oil pipelines

The Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines will get a second shot under the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive action that may revive the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Former President Barack Obama rejected the U.S.-to-Canada project in late 2015 on the grounds that it would hurt U.S. efforts to tackle climate change.

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The document clears the way for government approval of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline from Canada's Alberta tar sands region to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"We'll see if we can get that pipeline built," Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. "A lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs, great construction jobs."

The actual number of jobs the pipeline would create is likely far smaller. 

The U.S. State Department has estimated construction would require about 3,900 "average annual" jobs over one year of construction, or 1,950 jobs each year if the pipeline takes two years to build. However, the pipeline would provide less than 100 permanent jobs.

Trump also signed an action to advance the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. 

In December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under Obama denied a crucial permit that would've allowed a key piece of pipeline to run beneath Lake Oahe, a reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Native American activists and their allies worry that the $3.8 billion project would threaten the region's water supplies and damage sacred sites. Critics also argued the 1,170-mile pipeline would boost U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by enabling more oil production in North Dakota.

Environmental groups immediately responded to Trump's actions, vowing to double down on their opposition against the pipelines they fought for years to block.

"Indigenous peoples, landowners, and climate activists did everything in our power to stop Keystone XL and Dakota Access, and we’ll do it again," May Boeve, executive director of 350.org, said in a statement. "These orders will only reignite the widespread grassroots opposition to these pipelines and other dirty energy projects. Trump is about to meet the fossil fuel resistance head on.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the moves on the two pipelines would be subject to the terms and conditions being renegotiated by the Trump administration.

Trump, as well as Rick Perry, his nominee to be Energy secretary, had financial stakes in the Dakota Access Pipeline through investments Energy Transfer Partners. Trump sold his stake in the company in December, and Perry stepped down from the board of that firm and another Dakota Access builder, Sunoco Logistics Partners LP in the same month.

Energy Transfer Partners' CEO was also a major donor to Trump's campaign as well as the Republican National Committee. 

These connections were not lost on some critics of Trump's actions on Tuesday. “President Trump’s decision on the Dakota Access Pipeline today is particularly concerning given his and Energy Secretary nominee Rick Perry’s longstanding ties to the builder of the pipeline," said Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, in a statement.

The president signed two more executive actions on Tuesday: One declaring that new U.S. pipelines should use pipe produced in the United States, and another that Trump said would streamline the "incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process" and reduce regulatory burdens for domestic manufacturing.

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