Trump gives the go-ahead for a major new Canada-U.S. oil pipeline
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — President Trump granted a key approval Thursday for a major new oil pipeline that would carry oil from Canada into the U.S. where it would be exported and refined.
The 3-foot-wide Bridger Pipeline Expansion would carry up to 550,000 barrels (87,400 cubic meters) of oil a day from the Canadian border with Montana down through eastern Montana and Wyoming, where it would link with another pipeline.
The project would require additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction, which company officials expect to start next year. Environmentalists hope to stop the project over worries that the pipeline could break and spill.
At peak volume, the 650-mile pipeline would move two-thirds as much oil as the better-known Keystone XL pipeline that got partially built before President Joe Biden, citing climate-change concerns, canceled its permit on the day he took office in 2021.
"Slightly different from the last administration. They wouldn't sign a pipeline deal. And we have pipelines going up," Trump said after signing the Bridger Pipeline Expansion cross-border approval.
Trump in his first term approved the Keystone XL project in 2020 over the concern of Native American tribes about possible spills and environmental groups about fossil fuels' contribution to climate change.
Biden's Keystone XL permit cancellation the following year frustrated Canadian officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after Alberta invested more than $1 billion in the project.
Sometimes called "Keystone Light," the Bridger Pipeline Expansion would not cross any Native American reservations. More than 70% would be built within existing pipeline corridors and 80% on private land, Bridger Pipeline LLC said in a statement.
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