Obama-Appointed Judge Blocks Keystone XL Pipeline, Dealing Blow To Trump’s Agenda

A federal judge moved Thursday to block President Donald Trump’s decision to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline without providing a reason for overturning the Obama administration’s ruling on the project.

Judge Brian Morris found that the Trump administration did not account for how a decline in oil prices might affect the pipeline’s viability. The government’s analysis failed to address how greenhouse gas emissions might increase as a result of the project’s approval, he noted.

“The Department instead simply discarded prior factual findings related to climate change to support its course reversal,” he wrote. Morris also cited a U.S. Supreme Court noting: “An agency cannot simply disregard contrary or inconvenient factual determinations that it made in the past.”

The Department of State issued a 300-page report in July finding that the Keystone extension could damage wetlands across parts of Nebraska, though most of the impact would be temporary.

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