Canada urges Biden to scrap plans to end Keystone XL pipeline

TORONTO — Top officials in Canada want a chance to make the case for a long disputed oil pipeline to be built amid reports President-elect Joe Biden will cancel Keystone XL.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said Monday he will seek legal damages if reports are true that Biden plans to scrap the pipeline on his first day upon taking office. Biden’s plan is outlined in transition documents seen by Canadian media outlets.

“We hope President-elect Biden will show respect for Canada and will sit down and at the very least talk to us,” Kenney said.

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said Monday the transition team had no comment on the pipeline. A person familiar with the pipeline matter said Monday that the document cited by Canadian news media was a draft slide that was a few weeks old. Despite the timing suggested in the draft slide, everything on it “may not happen on Day One,” the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record on the matter.

The 1,700-mile pipeline would carry roughly 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

First proposed in 2008, the pipeline has become emblematic of the tensions between economic development and curbing the fossil fuel emissions that are causing climate change. The Obama administration rejected it, but President Donald Trump revived it and has been a strong supporter. Construction already started.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised Keystone XL as a top priority when he spoke with Biden in a phone call after he won the election in November.

The project is meant to expand critical oil exports for Canada, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world.

Trudeau and Biden are close and largely politically aligned, but the pipeline is expected to be an early irritant as Biden has said he would cancel it.

“Surely the relationship between Canada and the United States is worth at least having that discussion,” said Kenney, whose province has a financial stake in the pipeline.

After reports surfaced that it would be canceled on the first day of Biden’s term, Calgary, Alberta-based TC Energy Corp. announced late Sunday it would spent $1.7 billion on a solar, wind and battery-powered operating system for the pipeline to ensure it is zero-emission by 2030, and to rely exclusively on union labor.