TC Energy just announced the final nail in the coffin for the Keystone XL pipeline project. We are thrilled with this news as this has been a long fought affair over years building collective support over a wide range of people, tribes, and groups. President Biden had denied the international border crossing for KXL on his first day in office effectively stalling construction. Permits were later turned back over to states like in South Dakota, but it wasn’t until a final decision to scrap the project from the company that we could say the project is dead.
 
Over the years an unlikely coalition of Tribal Nations, farmers and ranchers, and nonprofit groups joined together to fight back against the threat that this project posed to our homelands, water, and people. It brought to light issues of Tribal sovereignty,  free, prior, informed consent, water rights, eminent domain and set a precedent of how to fight back against big oil pipelines.
 
While we celebrate this win, we must remember that TC Energy is still threatening Indigenous communities and sovereignty.  Transmountain pipeline threatens the Squamish and Tsleil Waututh, Wetʼsuwetʼen, and other tribal lands in so called British Columbia Canada. They also just announced the expansion of their GTN   Xpress fracked gas pipeline, threatening sensitive ecological biological environments including the northern Sound which is home to salmon and orca.
 
I’m glad that KXL has officially been terminated. It marks the end of one heck of a fight. We must continue to stay vigilant to TC Energy and other companies that threaten our homelands, Earth Mother, our waters, an further exacerbate the climate crisis.
 
Joye Braun, National Pipelines Organizer, Indigenous Environmental Network