TransCanada Sues Obama Administration For Blocking Keystone XL Construction

The company, which has spent $3.1 billion on the project already including on pipe and payments to landowners, said the $15 billion damage claim includes compensation for foregone tolls and other profit it otherwise would have earned.

“The president denied the Keystone XL pipeline permit, even though Congress approved it on a bipartisan basis, all six states along the route approved it and the American people overwhelmingly support it”.

Congress, not the president, has the constitutional power to regulate cross-border trade, TransCanada said. It claims the denial is without legal merit and that no further presidential action is necessary before construction of Keystone XL can begin.

There was no immediate comment from the White House or State Department.

“No one has the answer what the future is going to look like, and no one can foresee the dramatic effect that climate instability will have on our planet and the biodiversity in it, but I’m just very proud for the first time we’ve taken a step in the right direction”, Dicaprio said.

The pipeline was created to pump crude from the tar sands of Alberta across the USA to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast – but spent years in limbo after running into strong opposition from climate campaigners and Nebraska ranchers. Obama administration officials have said there are adequate protections in the TPP to prevent the arbitration process from being exploited, and the president has described the agreement as “the most pro-labor, pro-environment, progressive deal in history”.

TransCanada points out a State Department report saying Keystone XL would not have significantly increased global greenhouse gas emissions.

“We’re aware of recent developments with this file and TransCanada”, he said. “Today, we’re continuing to lead by example”.

A ham-handed lobbying campaign by Canada’s then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not help the pipeline’s cause.

The latest legal fight over the pipeline is unique in the sense that most observers considered the project dead.

“Keystone XL is dead and nothing about this legal maneuvering changes that”, said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune in a statement.

“TransCanada has been unjustly deprived of the value of its multibillion dollar investment by the US administration’s actions”, according to a statement.

The Keystone XL pipeline was meant to connect to this pumping station in Steele City, Neb.

Wednesday’s action by TransCanada also brings NAFTA and its Chapter 11 provisions into the spotlight.

“Presumably they have a case that there are damages, as they were led to believe that if they did these things they’d get it across the line, but they weren’t able to”, said portfolio manager Ryan Bushell at Leon Frazer & Associates in Toronto, whose firm owns more than a million shares in TransCanada.