[Note: This story is also published at the Daily Caller]
On his first day in office, US president Joe Biden famously used a stroke of his pen to cancel Trans-Canada’s (now TC Energy) $8 billion investment in the northern leg of its Keystone Pipeline system. Biden took this action despite his administration’s failure to find Trans-Canada in violation of any U.S. law or regulation that would warrant such an extreme measure. The President justified his action based on specious claims that canceling the pipeline would somehow reduce U.S. carbon emissions.
That claim is complete nonsense given that oil from Alberta’s oil sands projects has continued flowing into the United States on trucks and trains. Incremental production volumes that can’t flow into the U.S. by those means or on other, pre-existing pipelines are being transported west to Vancouver, BC on Canada’s Trans-Mountain pipeline. Both rail and trucking are far more risky, more expensive, and much more polluting than transporting oil in a modern, state-of-the-art pipeline. Thus, the Biden abuse of power will go down in history as one of the most futile and costly energy-related gestures ever taken by the U.S. government. (RELATED: DAVID BLACKMON: Israel War Shows Energy Security Is More Important Than Ever)
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