President Donald Trump announced that one of his top priorities is resurrecting a major oil production project that was halted by the Biden administration.
In a post to Truth Social on Monday evening, the president said he wanted to bring back the Keystone XL pipeline project. The pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries a day. It was battled by environmentalists for years before being canceled by former President Joe Biden in 2021.
“Our Country’s doing really well, and today, I was just thinking, that the company building the Keystone XL Pipeline that was viciously jettisoned by the incompetent Biden Administration should come back to America, and get it built — NOW!” Trump said.
Trump promised that TC Energy, the company now known as South Bow that spearheaded the Keystone deal, would face relaxed regulations under his administration. The company has signaled it is no longer interested in constructing the pipeline after facing years of legal battles and regulations blocking the project.
“I know they were treated very badly by Sleepy Joe Biden, but the Trump Administration is very different — Easy approvals, almost immediate start! If not them, perhaps another Pipeline Company. We want the Keystone XL Pipeline built!” the president said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the news during a follow-up interview on Fox News.
“He was just thinking about the company that was chewed away and canceled by the Biden administration who wanted to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. He is inviting them back,” she said.
Leavitt framed the project as an opportunity to bring down energy costs, which have reached record highs over the past few years.
Trump “wants [a] pipeline built in the Northeast in New England, where I am from, where we have some of the highest electricity and utility rates in the country,” the press secretary said. “This is a president who is constantly thinking about how he can help the American people, innovating and pushing groundbreaking ideas on every single issue.”
Trump opened the door to reviving the pipeline on his first day back in the White House on Jan. 20 of this year. At the time, he signed an executive order rescinding a Biden administration executive order that revoked Trump’s 2019 permit for the pipeline.
Trump has long railed against Biden’s move to revoke the Keystone permit, saying it put the United States at a competitive disadvantage and threatened the country’s national security.
“Why does Biden go in and kill the Keystone pipeline and approve the single biggest deal that Russia’s ever made, Nord Stream 2, the biggest pipeline anywhere in the world going to Germany and all over Europe?” Trump said during his campaign for president in 2024. “Because they’re weak and they’re ineffective.”
CLEAN ENERGY ADVOCATES SEE REASON FOR HOPE UNDER TRUMP
Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, told the Washington Free Beacon shortly after Trump took office in January that she was open to reopening work on the pipeline. Alberta is where the pipeline starts.
“What I would propose is — are there ways that we can look at increasing pipeline access, perhaps some new routes or perhaps some new proposals on existing routes?” Smith said. “So, whether it’s a Keystone 2.0 or something else, I’m looking forward to starting those conversations.”