Trump Approves Keystone XL And Dakota Access Pipelines, Restoring American Right To Watch Crude Oil Travel Beneath Indigenous Drinking Water

WASHINGTON. Four days into his presidency, President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday signed presidential memoranda advancing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, resolving long-standing administration concerns that two oil pipelines previously blocked by his predecessor were not yet under construction.

The orders revive a 1,179-mile cross-border conduit that the State Department had spent six years studying before rejecting, and clear the final easement for a 1,172-mile project whose path crosses beneath the primary drinking water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Both pipelines, the President noted, would create "28,000 jobs, great construction jobs," a figure exceeding by approximately 27,965 the State Department's own estimate of permanent operations positions for Keystone XL.

"From now on, we're going to start making pipelines in the United States," Trump told reporters at the signing, gesturing toward documents that approved a pipeline owned by a Canadian company. The President added that he would "renegotiate the terms" of the projects with their owners, an arrangement observers noted would normally be conducted before the issuance of federal approvals rather than after.

Sources within the administration confirmed that the President's recent divestment from Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas firm building Dakota Access, had occurred at an unspecified point during the 2016 campaign, and that the pipeline's chief executive Kelcy Warren had subsequently donated $103,000 to the Trump campaign and inaugural committee in a transaction the White House described as unrelated to anything else mentioned in this article. Phillips 66, in which the President had also previously held stock, holds a 25 percent stake in Dakota Access.

The signing took place beside an undisturbed federal review process that protesters at the Standing Rock encampment had spent the prior eight months attempting to engage. Roughly seven thousand demonstrators, including more than two thousand U.S. military veterans, were informed via the executive action that their concerns had been thoroughly considered.

At press time, the President was reviewing additional executive actions to spare future pipelines the indignity of federal review.