Earlier on Friday, the State Department issued a permit to construct the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline immediately followed by Trump’s approval of the deal.
“These types of actions, these approvals, are really, I think, good examples of how this [Trump] administration is really interested in making special interests feel happy about furthering their agenda but not necessarily looking out for actually what would benefit the American people,” Hartl said.
It is also a good example of crony capitalism, Hartl claimed, in the sense that this pipeline, by its design, is not really going to help US consumers and is not going to create that many jobs.
“But it certainly will benefit the larger oil markets and oil companies that are invested in this because they are all interconnected,” Hartl said.
Hartl add that the United States only serves as a bypass for the pipeline which stretches from the Canadian province of Alberta to oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico where the oil will be exported.
The pipeline will transport 35 million gallons of oil every day, posing an environmental threat to the US public and wildlife, the CBD stated in a press release.
Since 1986, pipeline incidents have spilled an average of 76,000 barrels per year, the CBD stated.
