On his first day in office in 2021, then-President Joe Biden ended the expansion of the Keystone XL pipelinea highly controversial project aimed at speeding up the transportation of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to the United States. Now, the Trump administration has given it new life.
On Thursday, the president signed an order authorizing the proposed Bridger pipeline expansion to reactivate portions of the Keystone XL pipeline. The new 1,050-kilometer (650-mile) long pipeline, often called “Keystone Light,” funnel up to 550,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada through Montana and Wyoming, where it would be connect with the Guernsey Centre.
To be clear, there are key differences between the Bridger pipeline and the canceled Keystone XL pipeline. For one thing, Bridger will move less oil. Once completed, Keystone XL would have been able to accommodate carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Bridger also will not cross any Native American reservations, although he will run through some areas of tribal significance, as well as 21.5 miles (35 km) of federally protected lands in Montana and 6.1 miles (10 km) of protected lands in Wyoming.
Still, the source of oil and the strategic purpose of the new pipeline will be the same as its predecessor. Environmentalists are as alarmed as they were in 2017, when the first Trump administration authorized Keystone XL.
“No matter what the project is called, the environmental concerns that animated the fight over Keystone XL are no less acute today,” said Anthony Swift, senior strategist for global nature at the Natural Resources Defense Council. saying in a statement. “Keystone Light will threaten water supplies and exacerbate climate change. Now is the time to get off the oil roller coaster, not double down on the dirtiest oil on the planet.”
Here we go again
When Biden revoked Keystone XL’s border crossing permit, it was a huge victory for tribes and environmentalists who had opposite the project for years. They argued that the pipeline posed a direct threat to indigenous lands and the nation’s climate goals.
The Bridger pipeline would follow a shorter route that would avoid Native American reservations, but would still threaten ecosystems and water quality and increase America’s carbon emissions.
Bill Salvin, spokesman for Bridger Pipeline LLC, said According to the Associated Press, the pipeline would transport various grades of crude oil, including that from Canada’s tar sands region, to the United States for export or refining. Crude oil refining emits huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasescontributing significantly to climate change. On a broader scale, this project would further the Trump administration’s aggressive pro-fossil fuel agenda and reverse progress on the clean energy transition.
Bridger Pipeline LLC and others subsidiaries of True Companies, a Wyoming-based conglomerate, has also been responsible for several major oil pipeline accidents, the AP reports.
A spill in 2015 dumped 50,000 gallons (240 liters) of crude oil into the Yellowstone River. polluting the water supply of a Montana city. The Little Missouri River and a tributary were contaminated by another spill in 2016 that released 600,000 gallons (2.7 million liters) of oil in North Dakota. And in 2022, there was a 45,000-gallon (170,000-liter) diesel spill in Wyoming.
Bridger Pipeline LLC and another subsidiary of True Companies, Belle Fourche Pipeline Company, agreed pay a $12.5 million civil penalty to resolve claims under the Clean Water Act and pipeline safety laws related to spills in Montana and North Dakota.
A difficult battle ahead
It’s easy to see why environmentalists are once again up in arms, but advocates of the pipeline, both in Canada and the United States, argue that it will create jobs and increase North America’s energy security amid the Crisis caused by the United States war in Iran..
Even if environmentalists came out against the Bridger pipeline as fiercely as they did against Keystone XL, derailing the project will likely be more difficult. The project already has support from the White House, can surpass Keystone’s existing infrastructure and avoids some of the conflicts over indigenous lands that became central to Keystone XL’s downfall.
Still, the project is not closed. You need to obtain additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction, which Bridger Pipeline LLC wait. Environmentalists hope derail this part of the permitting process over concerns that the pipeline could rupture and spill and threats to areas of tribal importance. It remains to be seen whether they can succeed again.
