The Keystone Pipeline is Dead

And the ignorant dance on its grave

Canadian oil company TC Energy Corp. announced in June that it had “terminated” the Keystone XL project. After more than a decade of political, legal, and PR battles, culminating in President Biden revoking the project’s existing permit on his first day in office, TC Energy has finally determined that it simply isn’t worth trying to move the project forward.

While environmentalists and tribal activists who opposed the Keystone pipeline no doubt believe they’ve won a great victory, we (and, indeed, the environment) have actually lost here.

The most obvious costs of losing the pipeline are economic. TC Energy estimated that the construction of the Keystone XL would have created roughly 11,000 US-based jobs in 2021. That’s 11,000 jobs that will no longer be going to hardworking Americans and some $1.6 billion in wages that will no longer be putting food on their tables and entering our economy.

The State Department was even more bullish, estimating spending on the construction of the project would (directly and indirectly) “support a combined total of approximately 42,100 jobs throughout the United States for the up to two-year construction period,” and “contribute approximately $3.4 billion” to GDP.

In addition, TC Energy is now (rightfully) suing the federal government to recoup the billions of dollars the company invested under the protection of a contractual guarantee from the United States that the project would be allowed to move forward. That means the American taxpayer may soon be on the hook for $15 billion stemming from President Biden’s actions.

Progressives killed the Keystone pipeline even though it would have been safer for the environment than tanker trucks

In addition, millions were wasted during a decade-plus of legal and regulatory battles that could have been put to productive use elsewhere rather than enriching members of the legal profession at everyone else’s expense. Considering how many people are still suffering from the impacts of the near-total shutdown of the economy in reaction to COVID-19, this was a tragic loss of opportunity for American workers to improve their positions.

But even on the environmentalists’ own terms— setting aside a cold, unfeeling focus on dollars and cents—the death of the Keystone XL Pipeline is a tragedy. Much to the activists’ chagrin, neither TC Energy’s decision nor President Biden’s decision on January 20 will have much of a discernable impact on the world’s demand for affordable, reliable energy. Production on the Alberta Tar Sands isn’t diminishing any time soon, and neither is the need to transport the oil produced there to the refineries for ultimate distribution to the world’s energy consumers (you and me).

What has in effect happened, then, is that all the oil that would have been flowing through a secure, state-of-the-art oil pipeline will now be transported to market via rail and truck, means of transport that are more dangerous and polluting than any pipeline. For example, pipelines result in far fewer deaths per year than either trucks or rail, despite transporting about ten times more volume of oil than the other two combined. Transportation by pipeline is 4.5 times less likely to result in a spill than transport by rail.

The death of the Keystone XL means we replace a safe, inexpensive, and relatively eco-friendly means of oil transport with other methods that are more likely to endanger humans and the environment.

Public aversion to oil pipelines, fueled by a sensationalistic press and an activist class who want to prohibit any land development at any cost, is going to result in energy that is more expensive, more dangerous, and more environmentally damaging. We were promised a Green New Deal, but nobody ever said anything about that deal being any good.

David McDonald is an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation.

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