As expected, one of President Biden’s first actions as president is heading to court, as 21 state’s attorneys general sue to keep the project going.
A coalition of attorneys general from 21 states sued President Biden and members of his administration for rescinding the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, seeking to undo the president’s attempt to effectively nix the 1,200 mile-long pipeline.
Led by the attorneys general of Texas and Montana, the states argued in their complaint that the president exceeded his authority when he issued his executive order January 20 revoking permits for the oil pipeline. The order targeting Keystone was one of several executive actions Mr. Biden has taken since assuming the presidency that focus on the environment and addressing climate change.
“Revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit is a regulation of interstate and international commerce, which can only be accomplished as any other statute can: through the process of bicameralism and presentment,” the states argued in their complaint. “The president lacks the power to enact his ‘ambitious plan’ to reshape the economy in defiance of Congress’s unwillingness to do so.”
The attorneys general argued Congress set rules for the actions the president can take regarding Keystone, and Mr. Biden and senior members of his administration flouted those rules.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Mr. Biden of acting “with complete disregard for the constitutional limits on his power.”
Designed by TC Energy Corporation to move approximately 830,000 barrels of oil from Canada and Montana to the Gulf Coast of Texas, the Keystone XL pipeline is part of a larger system of lines and would run through several states. While the Obama administration denied permits for the pipeline, former President Donald Trump approved construction of the line in 2019, and work began last year.
In his order effectively ending the pipeline, Mr. Biden said it would not serve the national interest and argued the U.S. should prioritize “the development of a clean energy economy, which will in turn create good jobs.”
But his order has left hundreds of workers unemployed, and TC Energy estimated nearly 1,000 employees were laid off as a result of the action.
As always, not quite:
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/2021/01/22/keystone-pipeline-jobs-lost-joe-biden-executive-order-cancel-fact-check/6673822002/
I’m all for discussing the economic impacts of any administration’s actions, but the lying is getting really wearying.Report
OTOH, the order also implies that we will not help Canada export huge amounts of tar sands crude. Which was, after all, the original purpose of the XL: a nice smooth downhill run from the tar sands to a warm water port. Some of the fracking production from North Dakota and Montana could fill up any empty slots in the pipe. As an extra benefit, said port was also adjacent to a lot of refining capacity that pumped product all over the Southeast and Atlantic Seaboard in the US.Report
they honestly think if you make it really hard and dangerous and expensive to do things with oil, then people will stop using oilReport
That is the strategy, I think it started as a point of leverage (pipelines are easy to block), but the movement got so invested in it that it lost sight of how marginal the enviromental gains are. Basically it is a hostage taking strategy that involved teaching your grunts to enjoy shooting hostages.
This lawsuit is performative nonsense though, the writ of Trump’s approval is written explicitly to be revokable by POTUS at any time.Report
Its going to get more expensive with oil no matter what as time goes on. What with oil being a finite resource and all.Report
And yet we heard in the mid-90s how we’d hit Peak Oil.
And then again, in the mid-2000s, that we’d hit Peak Oil.
And in the mid-2010s, again we heard that we’d hit Peak Oil.
It seems that Peak Oil is always Right Now, sort of like how fusion power is always Twenty Years Away…Report
There is nothing wrong with the original Hubert’s Peak: extraction of a physical resource from a known source follows a logistics-like curve. Hubbert, writing in the 50s, hit the production from conventional crude in the lower 48 states almost exactly on the nose. The total curve was busted by Alaska… which is following its own Hubbert curve nicely. Hydraulic fracturing made another US “basin” available, which seems to be following its own Hubbert curve. Peak Oil has failed because it didn’t recognize how many additional basins there were.
Following this for the last 20 or so years, I have and continue to maintain that the limiting factor is likely not physical production but either the cost of bringing another “basin” online or more likely, political non-acceptance of the consequences of +2 °C or +4 °C.Report
I thought demand was sensitive to price. Carbon taxes, effluent fees, pigouvian taxes, all that Econ. 101 stuff.Report
Is the alternative fully realized yet? We got a few more years before EV sales are equal to gas/diesel vehicles, and even longer before the used markets are majority electric.
Trying to artificially reduce the supply ahead of the alternatives being widely available just forces those costs onto those who can least afford it.
Unless we want to do an expanded Cash For Clunkers.Report
NO!!! Did not mean to hit report. I’m so sorry.Report
It is. I forget the value — 4%? 6%? Whenever transportation fuels’ costs reach that percentage of GDP, there’s a substantial recession that kills off demand. It’s not smooth, there’s a nonlinear tipping point.Report
What do they do to try and ensure these things don’t leak (WaPo)? This isn’t like a LNG pipeline where a leak just vents to atmo. I know oil tankers have had a lot of changes over the years to prevent spills and minimize them when they do happen, but what do pipelines do?Report
broke: “tRump said that he saved a bunch of Carrier jobs but it’s only, like, a couple thousand jobs, and only short-term jobs at that, and it depends entirely on your definition of job, stop LYING about this”
woke: “they say Biden killed a bunch of TC Energy jobs but it’s only, like, a couple thousand jobs, and only short-term jobs at that, and it depends entirely on your definition of job, stop LYING about this”Report
I see what you did there….Report
I do too and its disingenuous in as much as those Carrier jobs didn’t actually stay:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-carrier/more-layoffs-at-indiana-factory-trump-made-deal-to-keep-open-idUSKBN1F02TLReport
Some of the 21 are interesting. I wonder how the AGs from Arizona and Utah, for example, are going to claim an injury.Report
I think it might be something as simple as “we’re going to sign on because we also have strong opinions on the limits of jurisdiction for the Feds when it comes to state matters”.
It’s not about *THIS* case. It’s that they see the next case as affecting them.
Nip it in the bud.Report
Agreed. Look how many of them jumped on each others election cases.Report
As I recall, none of those reached the SCOTUS where the standing question of the various parties could be finally resolved. A number of states, realizing the risk, chose to file friend of the court briefs rather than signing on as an actual plaintiff.
This will be even more difficult for the states. They are basically challenging the federal government’s authority to approve or not permitting for a project that crosses a US international boundary.Report
Yes they are – because they are from states that presuppose that federalism gives them more power then they currently believe they have.Report