In a 3-0 vote, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Tenth Circuit has ruled that the southern leg of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline was permitted in a lawful manner by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Keystone XL South was approved via a controversial Army Corps Nationwide Permit 12 and an accompanying March 2012 Executive Order from President Barack Obama. The pipeline, open for business since January 2014, will now carry tar sands crude from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur, Texas without the cloud of the legal challenge hanging over its head since 2012.
As previously reported here on DeSmog, the Sierra Club and co-plaintiffs already lost their Appeals Court legal challenge to impose an injunction and stop diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) from flowing through Keystone XL South back in October 2013. Now that same Court, albeit different judges, have ruled that the pipeline approval process itself was also legally acceptable.