President Trump signs Executive Orders to clear Dakota Access, Keystone Pipeline to move forward, critics angry
President Trump signed executive orders Tuesday clearing the way for the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines to move forward. Critics wasted no time to speak against the move. Trump also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, attacking the “incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process.”
“The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled up mess,” the President said.
The executive order directs the Army Corps of Engineers to “review and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law.”
“I am very insistent that if we’re going to build pipelines in the United States, the pipe should be made in the United States,” he said.
The orders will have an immediate impact in North Dakota, where the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners wants to complete the final 1,100-foot piece of the 1,172-mile pipeline route that runs under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would carry oil from the booming shale oil reserves in North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois.
Keystone XL demonstration, White House,8-23-2011 photo Josh Lopez
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other Native American groups have been protesting the project.
The executive order from Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline threatens to undo a major decision by President Obama, who said that the project would contribute to climate change because it would carry tar sands crude which is especially greenhouse gas intensive because of the energy it takes to extract the thick crude.
TransCanada, the Calgary-based project owner, has said it would be interested in reviving the pipeline.
“From now on we’re going to be making pipeline in the United States. We build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe. We’re going to put a lot of workers, a lot of skilled workers, back to work. We will build our own pipeline, we will build our own pipes, like we used to in the old days.”
“The American people decisively rejected both the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline. President Trump’s executive orders are a giveaway to the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our planet and its inhabitants,” California Congresswoman Barbara Lee immediately responded.
““At every turn, President Trump has shown his allegiance is with billionaires and Big Oil, not working families. We must resist this dangerous agenda and fight for the future of our planet.”
Speaking to reporters Monday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president supported energy projects “like Dakota and the Keystone Pipeline, areas that we can increase jobs, increase economic growth, and tap into America’s energy supply more, that’s something that he has been very clear about.”
Referring to comments Trump has made during the campaign and after the election, “He was talking about that being a big priority. That’s one of those ones where I think that the energy sector and our natural resources are an area where I think the president is very, very keen on making sure that we maximize our use of natural resources to America’s benefit.”
“It’s good for economic growth, it’s good for jobs, and it’s good for American energy,” Spicer added.
The Keystone XL Pipeline would create a diagonal pipeline from Canada through Montana, the Dakota and Nebraska to get oil to Steele City faster and more efficiently. Check out the map HERE (Link stopped working, disabled BBJ – Dispatch)
The Dakota Access Pipeless would be a pipeline path below Lake Oahe deeper THAN THE EXISTING PIPELINE, promoted as “(DAPL) is the safest and most environmentally sensitive way to transport crude oil from domestic wells to American consumers.” Check out that map HERE
