President Trump Approves Dakota Access, Keystone Pipelines Construction With Executive Action

WASHINGTON, DC — President Trump signed executive action Tuesday that allows construction to resume on the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, making good on a promise he repeatedly made on the campaign trail.

President Obama had ordered construction on both pipelines to be halted because of environmental concerns. During the Obama administration, fights over the pipeline became a symbol of the divide between environmental organizations and oil companies.

Construction on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have moved oil from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska, was halted more than a year ago and came as Obama was preparing to negotiate a worldwide effort to fight climate change.

When signing his executive order, Trump said the Keystone Pipeline can only be built with steel manufactured in the United States. The current Keystone Pipeline is made with foreign steel.

Construction on Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline has drawn protesters from across the country to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in the Dakotas. The activists, led by members of the Standing Rock Indian tribe, say the pipeline would approach sacred burial grounds and that a spill would have catastrophic effects on the tribe's reservation.

Obama blocked the pipeline in December, largely a symbolic move at the time with an opposition president set to take office.

In response to a question about dealing with protesters in the Dakotas, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "Dakota pipeline jobs will benefit every American regardless of the color of their skin."

Spicer also brushed off a question about a possible conflict of interest involving Trump and the pipeline. While the president has sold his Energy Transfer Partners, he still has a small stake in Phillips 66, an energy company working on the pipeline, according to CNBC.

"Thousands of dollars for a guy that's a multi-billionaire? I don't think that's a concern," Spicer said. “He has no conflicts. By law he can’t have conflicts.”

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a staunch pipeline opponent, said he would do "everything I can" to stop the Dakota pipeline's construction.

"At a time when the scientific community is virtually unanimous in telling us that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity and it is already causing devastating problems, we cannot afford to build new oil pipelines that lock us into burning fossil fuels for years to come," Sanders said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Image via the White House