Judge Blocks Keystone XL Pipeline, Says Climate Impact Can't Be Ignored

A federal judge ruled the Trump administration failed to follow U.S. environment law when it approved the tar sands pipeline.  TransCanada can't start construction.

A federal judge in Montana on Thursday blocked all further work on the Keystone XL pipeline, saying the Trump administration had failed to justify its decision to reverse a prior decision by the Obama administration and to approve the tar sands oil delivery project.

It was a striking victory for environmental advocates who have spent over a decade fighting the project to carry tar sands oil from Canada to markets in the United States and had turned the KXL line into a litmus test for climate action.

Environmental advocates, landowners along the pipeline's route and indigenous rights groups hailed the ruling.  They called it a major setback—if not a permanent defeat—for the long-contested crude oil pipeline.  The Obama administration had determined that the pipeline was not in the national interest, and President Barack Obama had cited its potential climate impact in rejecting it.

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