Energy company TC Energy has said it is seeking $15 billion in damages from the United States government over President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project.
In a statement on Friday, the Canada-based company said it had filed a notice of intent with the State Department to begin a legacy North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) claim under the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement.
The company said it aims to “recover economic damages resulting from the revocation of the Keystone XL Project’s Presidential Permit,” adding that it suffered a loss of more than $15 billion “as a result of the U.S. Government’s breach of its NAFTA obligations.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the State Department for comment.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office halting the Keystone Pipeline project that President Donald Trump had approved, saying it was part of his administration’s larger agenda to tackle a projected climate crisis.
Subsequently, TC Energy on June 9 officially pulled out of the project, which was first proposed in 2008 and would carry hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day from Canada into the United States.
While Biden’s decision was hailed by his supporters and many environmentalists, most Republicans and industry groups criticized his executive order blocking the pipeline. Critics have said tens of thousands of jobs were lost essentially overnight by the pipeline’s cancellation. After Biden revoked the pipeline’s permit, the energy company said it would “directly lead to the layoff of thousands of union workers.”
While asserting that the Keystone project “would not serve the U.S. national interest,” Biden said that his Jan. 20 order is designed to “promote and protect our public health and the environment, and conserve our national treasures and monuments, places that secure our national memory.”
The pipeline was slated to carry 830,000 barrels of oil per day from the Alberta oil sands to Nebraska. It had been delayed for over a decade amid opposition from many environmentalists, Native Americans, and some landowners.
