As former President Barack Obama’s final term slowly approached its end, tensions at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, in Nebraska and elsewhere remained at a low simmer. The administration had successfully blocked completion of both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline, but the incoming Donald Trump administration had spent months making the oil infrastructure projects a top campaign issue. That push became reality just four days after inauguration, as President Trump signed a pair of executive orders aimed at reviving and expediting construction of the controversial pipeline projects.
Executive Action
While many headlines have described the executive orders as a “green light” for construction – suggesting that the projects now have a clear path to completion – the truth is more nuanced. The Keystone XL executive order primarily serves to encourage TransCanada, the Canadian energy company heading the pipeline project, to resubmit its cross-border permit application for review. The order also mandates that the State Department “take all actions necessary and appropriate to facilitate its expeditious review.”
The order pertaining to the Dakota Pipeline, meanwhile, is more ambiguous in its intent. The executive action empowers the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and in particular the Commanding General and Chief of Engineers, to “take all actions necessary and appropriate” to review and approve all requests and regulatory issues necessary in order to complete the project quickly. This, again, is not an explicit green light to go ahead with the project, but it’s unmistakably a major shift in approach.
With these executive orders signed and rolling into action, both projects are likely to once again shift into high gear in the near future. Let’s take a look at where each pipeline currently stands and what issues may yet lie ahead for the controversial initiatives.
Keystone XL
Currently standing at approximately 40 percent completion, the massive 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline is intended to transport oil from the oilfield at the Athabasca oil sands south to Steele City, Nebraska. The U.S. portion of the project has languished in legal purgatory for most of its lifetime. Little progress has been made since efforts began to build the portion of the pipeline that crosses into the United States. President Trump’s suggestion that the necessary permits should be submitted and reviewed expeditiously should be viewed as a real step forward, but much remains to be done before the pipeline is completed.
The first potential hurdle comes in the form of the State Department. After denying the pipeline permit under President Obama on the grounds that the pipeline would not serve the national interest, the State Department now must construct a valid argument for reversing its course and approving the permit. Any decision to approve is sure to be met by protests and lawsuits from environmentalist groups. Further complicating the outlook is the fact that President Trump has hinted at his desire to negotiate a deal with TransCanada that better serves the United States – in particular, requiring the Canadian company to use U.S. steel in constructing the pipeline.
The Dakota Access Pipeline
While the Keystone XL in its current state is more plan than reality, the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline is just 1,100 feet from completion. Beginning in the Bakken shale oilfield in northwestern North Dakota and winding southeastward through parts of South Dakota and Iowa, the project eventually terminates at a large oil tank farm near Patoka, Illinois. The unfinished portion of the pipeline, which would run under the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Reservation in south-central North Dakota, has garnered tremendous resistance from both members of the reservation and concerned outsiders. Alternative routes, too, were shut down due to concerns over contamination of the local water supply. Though Trump’s executive order does not directly approve the final construction, it does provide several options for pushing the project forward.
The first is a continuation of the ongoing Environmental Impact Statement process, during which the Army Corps of Engineers would review the proposed route options to determine their viability and potential impacts. Alternatively, the Corps of Engineers may opt to scrap the current environmental review and instead proceed under the previously issued reviews and permits. This would allow construction to move forward almost immediately. Finally, newly-minted Secretary of Defense James Mattis could issue a Secretarial Decision that effectively terminates the review processes and allows the project to proceed at once.
An Organized Backlash
Along with legal issues and bureaucratic red tape, both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline will surely face public outcry as the projects again prepare to push forward. Groups such as the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) have already called for an organized resistance, promising “massive mobilization and civil disobedience on a scale never seen of a newly seated president of the United States.” Nebraska landowners threatened by the Keystone XL and its use of eminent domain, too, have begun gearing up for another round of protests and legal battles. They have, however, offered a potential compromise as well: moving the route of the Keystone XL such that it follows the existing Keystone pipeline in eastern Nebraska.
The Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects have become flashpoints in the American political process. While many people both locally and nationally have strongly – and vocally – opposed both initiatives, Donald Trump was swept into the Presidency in part on his pledge to renew the projects and see them through to completion. That process was officially kickstarted by Trump’s executive orders, but the road ahead remains as uncertain as ever.
