CASPER, Wyo. — Wyoming U.S. Sen. John Barrasson on Wednesday blamed President Joe Biden for the fate of the Keystone XL Pipeline after TC Energy announced it was terminating the project.
Biden had issued an executive order in January to cancel construction of the pipeline that would have connected crude oil from westen Canada to Nebraska and pipelines that reach the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to the Associated Press.
“President Biden killed the Keystone XL Pipeline and with it, thousands of good-paying American jobs,” Barrasso said in a statement following the announcement the project was being terminated. “On Inauguration Day, the president signed an executive order that ended pipeline construction and handed one thousand workers pink slips.”
“Now, ten times that number of jobs will never be created. At a time when gasoline prices are spiking, the White House is celebrating the death of a pipeline that would have helped bring Americans relief.”
The Keystone XL pipeline could have moved up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to the AP. Biden cancelled the project over “longstanding concerns that burning oil sands crude would make climate change worse,” the AP reports.
Wyoming politicians like Barrasso, Rep. Liz Cheney and Gov. Mark Gordon have all been critical of Biden’s decision to cancel the project.
Gordon’s office said in March that the state has joined 20 other states in a lawsuit which aimed to overturn the Biden administration’s decision.
Cheney said in January that the decision would “eliminate jobs, increase the cost of energy, and embolden our adversaries.”
Both Barrasso and Cheney have also tried to link Biden’s Keystone decision to rising gas prices.
“He shut down the Keystone XL pipeline, he banned new oil and gas leases on federal land, he’s restricted the production of American energy,” Barrasso said in May. “We need energy. We need it now. Gas prices affect the price of everything else. It costs more and more to transport things across the country. And that’s why we’re seeing prices go up at the grocery store.”
Cheney went further, attempting to link the Keystone cancellation to gas shortages in the eastern United States which were actually a result of a cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, which was temporarily shut down on May 7 before resuming operations on May 12.
“From cancelling the Keystone Pipeline to banning new oil & gas leasing on federal lands, Biden’s energy policies are having devastating consequences,” Cheney said via Twitter in late May. “We’ve already seen a glimpse of this devastation with prices skyrocketing & gas shortages hitting communities across the country.”
