President Biden to Canada on Keystone XL pipeline: Drop dead
Poor Justin Trudeau. The Canadian prime minister must have been relieved to be done with President Donald Trump, only to learn that Joe Biden plans to tell Canada to pound sand as one of his first priorities.
According to reports, Biden is canceling the Keystone XL pipeline immediately, a pointless and economically destructive gesture meant to appease his party’s climate fanatics.
The multi-billion-dollar proj- ect to run from Alberta to Nebraska was first proposed years XL, by making it easier for Can- sent somewhere by some ago in the naive faith that two ada to export its “dirty” oil means. Currently, much of it is adjoining, friendly countries from the oil sands of Alberta, being exported to the United could cooperate on a big, mutually will herald the beginning of a States via rail. This is a more beneficial infrastructure fossil-fuels apocalypse. energy-intensive mode of transport project. But we already consume lots than pipeline, yet the same
That was before the Keystone of petroleum from the oil people worried about marginal XL became a hate totem for the sands. According to the Canadian additional CO2 emissions left, which makes it sound like government, 97% of its proven aren’t agitating to get it out of the pipeline might be the tipping reserves are located in the railcars and into pipelines. point toward inevitable oil sands and the oil sands account The enemies of Keystone XL planetary destruction, among for more than 60% of the have used litigation to tie up its myriad other alleged sins. country’s current oil production. the project, even though it has
President Barack Obama denied passed multiple massive regulatory a cross-border permit for Canada is the third largest reviews. When it seemed the project in 2015. President exporter of crude oil in the it could finally get underway in Trump quickly reversed course. world, and 98% of that goes to earnest, here comes Joe Biden And now Biden is reversing the United States, accounting to put the kibosh on it again. Trump’s reversal. for almost half of our imports This is another sign that
It’s a symptom of our time of crude oil. Biden’s version of moderation that a major investment that In a more rational time, it is giving the left what it wants, deserves some stability in was considered a good thing to only in a piecemeal fashion. He American decision-making has get oil from a country that isn’t will surely be more polite to Canadian become a shuttlecock between located in the Middle East, isn’t leaders than Trump outgoing and incoming administrations a petro-dictatorship and isn’t was, but this is a blow to a Canadian — and been caught in hostile to the United States. government that a nightmarish trap of litigation Canada also is a responsible, thought it could rely on us to and red tape all the while. environmentally conscious act rationally and shows that
It’s not clear why adding new country unlike, say, Venezuela. union workers take a backseat pipeline to an existing network It is true that extracting crude in the Democratic Party to built in previous phases of the from the oil sands is somewhat noisy adherents of fashionable Keystone project would be more energy intensive than causes. thought such a heinous environmental other forms of extraction, but it If Biden really wants to restore crime (Keystone XL is foolish to pretend that this our alliances, telling our is the fourth phase). Nor why extra increment of CO2 is the friendly neighbor to the north this particular leg of pipeline is difference-maker in the future to “drop dead” is a funny way to considered so threatening in a of the planet. do it. country that already has a couple Regardless, this energy isn’t of million miles of pipeline. simply going to stay in the
The charge is that Keystone ground. It will be extracted and
Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.