After months of being in limbo, the State Department will approve the permit for the 1,200-mile Keystone Pipeline that was held up by the Obama administration. Environmentalists said that it would contribute to so-called global warming, though the Obama State Department’s own study showed that it wouldn’t really increase carbon emissions. Obama blocked it regardless, to appease his base.
With the Trump White House, there certainly is a new sheriff in town and it’s quite refreshing (via Politico):
The Trump administration will approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline by Monday, reversing one of former President Barack Obama’s most politically charged environmental decisions, according to two sources with knowledge of the plan.The move by the State Department comes 16 months after Obama blocked construction of the 1,200-mile pipeline, which would ship crude from Canada's western oil-sands region to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The pipeline became the subject of a major lobbying efforts by both oil industry supporters and environmental groups, which turned the project into the focus of their climate change campaigns.
One of the first executive orders President Trump signed was to get the ball rolling for the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. It’s about time.