The fight over Keystone XL is over: In a big win for our Earth, the pipeline won’t be built

This day has been a long time in the mak­ing, but it’s final­ly arrived.

At long last, we can say that one of the most immoral, cli­mate destroy­ing projects in mod­ern times has been scrapped. The Key­stone XL pipeline has met its demise!

Good rid­dance, we say.

TC Ener­gy said in a state­ment that it decid­ed along with the gov­ern­ment of Alber­ta to end the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar pipeline.

Activists who have spent more than a decade hop­ing to bury the project for good react­ed with joy at the news Wednesday.

Indeed!

In the end, not even Don­ald Trump’s four year occu­pa­tion of the White House could save the envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive, long trou­bled pipeline project.

“TC Ener­gy Cor­po­ra­tion con­firmed today that after a com­pre­hen­sive review of its options, and in con­sul­ta­tion with its part­ner, the Gov­ern­ment of Alber­ta, it has ter­mi­nat­ed the Key­stone XL Pipeline Project (the Project),” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment post­ed to its web­site and dis­trib­uted through P.R. chan­nels.

“Con­struc­tion activ­i­ties to advance the Project were sus­pend­ed fol­low­ing the revo­ca­tion of its Pres­i­den­tial Per­mit on Jan­u­ary 20th, 2021.”

“The Com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to coor­di­nate with reg­u­la­tors, stake­hold­ers and Indige­nous groups to meet its envi­ron­men­tal and reg­u­la­to­ry com­mit­ments and ensure a safe ter­mi­na­tion of and exit from the Project.”

Key­stone XL rep­re­sent­ed an effort by extreme­ly pow­er­ful, pol­lut­ing inter­ests to keep the Unit­ed States and Cana­da wed­ded to fos­sil fuels, while increas­ing the prof­its of bil­lion­aires like the Koch broth­ers, who are already very wealthy.

The pipeline’s boost­ers repeat­ed­ly sought to steam­roll Native Amer­i­can tribes and farm­ers in their attempts to seize right of way for the trans­port of oil from the dirty tar sands of Alber­ta. Although Pres­i­dent Oba­ma denied TC Ener­gy a per­mit to build the pipeline in 2015, the com­pa­ny did not give up. It found the ally it need­ed less than two years lat­er in 2017, when Don­ald Trump gained power.

But Trump did not remain in the White House long enough to save the pipeline.

Upon arriv­ing at 1600 Penn­syl­va­nia Avenue on Jan­u­ary 20th, Joe Biden pro­ceed­ed to prompt­ly revoke the Unit­ed States’ sup­port for the pipeline project.

Many pipeline boost­ers held out hope that the new admin­is­tra­tion’s oppo­si­tion could be over­come. But even­tu­al­ly, TC Ener­gy con­clud­ed it couldn’t.

The pipeline’s demise is a blow to oil-addict­ed politi­cians like Alber­ta Pre­mier Jason Ken­ney. Ken­ney was so deter­mined to see the pipeline built that he involved the tax­pay­ers of Alber­ta in the project.

“Today’s loss is anoth­er exam­ple of how Jason Ken­ney has failed our ener­gy sec­tor,” NDP ener­gy crit­ic Kath­leen Gan­ley said in a news release.

“From his embar­rass­ing war room to his over­due and over-bud­get inquiry, he’s failed to cre­ate jobs,” Gan­ley added, refer­ring to Ken­ney’s use of tax­pay­er funds to pro­mote his oil agen­da and “inves­ti­gate” for­eign based envi­ron­men­tal groups.

“Now, his mis­man­age­ment and com­plete incom­pe­tence on this file has cost the peo­ple of Alber­ta north of $1 bil­lion,” Gan­ley added.

Sev­er­al Cana­di­an oil boost­ers said it was time to focus on oth­er projects.

“Instead of bemoan­ing the can­cel­la­tion of Key­stone XL, how­ev­er, Cana­da should see this as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to put more empha­sis on direct access to off­shore mar­kets. Specif­i­cal­ly, the TMX pipeline will allow Cana­da to take advan­tage of direct exports to key mar­kets in the Indo-Pacif­ic,” wrote Jeff Kuchars­ki, a con­trib­u­tor to The Globe and Mail, Canada’s news­pa­per of record.

The TMX project is a grave threat to the envi­ron­men­tal health of the Pacif­ic North­west, and is mov­ing for­ward over the objec­tions of the peo­ple of British Colum­bia and their NDP-led gov­ern­ment thanks to a bad rul­ing by Canada’s Supreme Court. Last year, Tran­sCanada’s CEO admit­ted that the TMX pipeline expan­sion has bal­looned in cost, from around $7.4 bil­lion to $12.6 billion.

Like the exist­ing pipeline, TMX’s planned ter­mi­nus is in Burn­a­by, a port in the Sal­ish Sea, across the mar­itime bor­der from Wash­ing­ton State waters.

The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, under Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, has also approved a slew of oth­er pipeline projects despite claim­ing to be com­mit­ted to reduc­ing emis­sions and cli­mate dam­age. Trudeau’s crit­ics say he has done very lit­tle to lead on cli­mate. The Prime Min­is­ter’s pledges and green talk are fierce­ly belied by his repeat­ed advo­ca­cy for oil pipelines, includ­ing Key­stone XL.

In the case of TMX, Trudeau became the pipeline’s eleventh hour sav­ior when he arranged for the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da to buy the pipeline from Hous­ton-based Kinder Mor­gan. TMX is now owned and con­trolled by Cana­da Devel­op­ment Invest­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (CDEV), a Crown corporation.

As impor­tant as Key­stone XL’s demise is, it’s essen­tial to remem­ber that there are oth­er very destruc­tive oil pipeline projects mov­ing for­ward right now that need to be stopped. The Earth­’s cli­mate has already been cat­a­stroph­i­cal­ly dam­aged; it’s up to us to pre­vent our com­mon home from becom­ing fur­ther imperiled.