The Keystone XL oil pipeline received the federal government's approval Friday, President Donald Trump announced, marking a changed attitude about a project that President Barack Obama's administration kept bottled up during his presidency.
The pipeline had been opposed for years by environmental groups, landowners in states like Nebraska, and some Native American tribes, NBC News reported. Trump vowed that the pipeline would bring jobs, lower energy costs, and reduce America's reliance on foreign oil.
Trump had signed an executive order days into his presidency reviving construction of the $8 billion pipeline after the Obama administration rejected it in 2015 over environmental and climate change concerns, NBC News noted.
"TransCanada will finally be allowed to complete this long overdue project with efficiency and with speed," Trump said in White House remarks announcing the approval of a presidential permit. "We're working out the final details as we speak. It's going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man or woman. And frankly, we're very proud of it."
Russ Girling, president of TransCanada, promised "thousands of jobs" with the construction of the pipeline that should be a boon to local economies.
"That’s something often that’s overlooked in new projects like this, is local communities benefit greatly from these projects," Girling said in the White House comments. "It gives them tax revenues in which they can invest in schools, hospitals, roads, teachers, nurses – all of those things – build the fabric of communities and make those places better for those folks to live."
The pipeline has found some resistance from land owners and groups in Nebraska which opposed the pipeline. Jane Kleeb, director of pipeline opponent Bold Alliance, told the Omaha World-Herald on Friday that Trump turned his back on American landowners to benefit a foreign oil pipeline and risked the state's land and water.
Girling said in the White House gathering that TransCanada "had some work to do" to secure permits in the state. Trump joked that he will call the state's Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts about the issue.
Kleeb told the World-Herald that a decision on approving the pipeline's route in Nebraska is in the hands of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, not the governor.
The newspaper said the underground, 36-inch pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil daily from the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. The pipe's southern route is already done.
The 1,700-mile pipeline would run through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, the World-Herald noted.
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