Tribunal tosses TC Energy's claim

Company was seeking 15B in compensation after Biden administration cancelled project

- AMANDA STEPHENSON

U.S. President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL’s permit a year after NAFTA was terminated and the new U.S.-MexicoCanada Agreement took its place.

TC Energy Corp.’s illfated Keystone XL pipeline has suffered a major blow after a trade tribunal decision that tossed out its claim to $15 billion (U.S.) in damages.

The Calgary-based company launched the claim in 2021 to seek compensation after its proposed Keystone XL pipeline project was scuttled by U.S. President Joe Biden.

The claim was made under the legacy rules tied to the old North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, because of what TC Energy said was the U.S. government’s breach of its free-trade obligations.

Keystone XL was a proposed crude oil transportation pipeline, roughly 1,900-kilometres long, which would have carried oil from the oilsands of northern Alberta to the major U.S. crude storage hub at Cushing, Okla., and then on to Gulf Coast refineries.

But the project became a lightning rod for controversy and environmental and Indigenous activism, in addition to being subject to government flip-flops.

TC Energy first proposed the Keystone XL project under the Obama administration, which ultimately rejected it on environmental grounds. U.S. President Donald Trump revived the project, but Biden then killed it again by revoking the pipeline’s permit on his first day as president in 2021.