SD regulators to consider Keystone XL pipeline’s exit
More than a year after President Joe Biden revoked the federal permit for the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline, lawyers for the halted project are asking South Dakota regulators to consider nearly all activities in the state officially ended.
Parent company TC Energy has filed a motion with the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission asking the three-member panel to release a $15.6 million road bond that regulators required as part of the 2010 decision granting the South Dakota permit.
The commission on Tuesday will also consider TC Energy’s request to approve removal of the public liaison officer in South Dakota, saying her work is finished.
“Keystone has no remaining activities in South Dakota that are within the scope of the permit or the conditions,” the motion states, KELO-TV reported.
“Keystone has returned the workforce camp sites to the landowners and transferred the storm water prevention plan permits to the landowners. Keystone sold the pump stations to a salvage company and has no further legal responsibility for these sites,” attorneys for the company wrote.
Calgary-based TC Energy has said it would work with government agencies “to ensure a safe termination of and exit” from the partially built line, which was to transport crude from the oil sand fields of western Canada to Steele City, Nebraska where it would connect to other pipelines that feed oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Construction on the 1,200-mile (1,930-kilometer) pipeline began in 2020 when former President Donald Trump revived the long-delayed project after it had stalled under the Obama administration.
Biden canceled the pipeline’s border crossing permit when he took office over longstanding concerns that burning oil sands crude could make climate change worse.