Trump says he’ll move quickly on Keystone XL pipeline project
Incoming president expected to reverse ban on oil pipeline
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has suggested he’ll move quickly on Keystone XL after taking office, with the incoming president expected to reverse his predecessor’s ban on the Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline.
The president-elect made the comments in a lengthy interview with Fox News on Sunday.
It was just one remark on a news-filled weekend replete with stories about election-tampering from Russia, potential major changes to U.S. policy on China, fights over cabinet picks and the U.S. Congress passing a law that could reduce congestion at the Canada-U.S. border.
Trump brought up the pipeline himself during the interview with Fox News, while being pressed on whether his fossilfuel-friendly administration would remain in the Paris climate agreement. Trump said he would make a decision soon on Paris — then raised the pipeline.
“The Keystone pipeline, you’re going to have a decision fairly quickly,” Trump said.
“And you’ll see that.”
After years of political wrangling, President Barack Obama announced he’d denied a licence for the pipeline to cross the border. The pipeline would have carried almost one-quarter of Canada’s oil exports to the U.S. It was delayed by protests and court fights, which could be rekindled by any attempt to revive the project.
It’s little surprise that Trump would favour the project — it was part of his platform. He’s also reportedly considering naming the CEO of Exxon Mobil as his secretary of state, who would be in charge of the file.
Oil man Rex Tillerson has long supported the project. He’s also expressed a preference for carbon taxes as his favoured form of climate policy, over cap-and-trade systems.
But that’s not the main reason his rumoured appointment drew so much controversy over the weekend. The source of that consternation was Tillerson’s years-long personal relationship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Marco Rubio suggested the Senate might resist the appointment: “Being a ‘friend of Vladimir’ is not an attribute I am hoping for from a #SecretaryOfState,” tweeted the senator, who sits on the foreign relations committee that would run the confirmation hearing.
The rumoured nomination lands in a frenzy of news about Russian interference in the U.S. election.
Several media have reported that intelligence agencies informed lawmakers that hackers, affiliated with the Russian government, worked specifically to get Trump elected by stealing emails from Democrats and sending them to Wikileaks.
The conclusion of a pro-Trump effort was based, partly, on intelligence findings that Russia also hacked into Republicans’ computers — but held onto that material.
The chairman of the Republican party, Reince Priebus, vigorously denied that the national party’s computers were hacked. In an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press, however, he did not confirm or deny the possibility Russians might have material from people linked to the Republican campaign.
Trump’s reaction to the news shocked many in Washington: He blasted U.S. intelligence officials, deriding them as the people who provided faulty intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Several lawmakers from both parties have vowed an in-depth investigation of what happened in the election.