CANADA FX DEBT-Canadian dollar notches 3-year high as BoC foregoes

Bloomberg

Biden to Bar Keystone Pipeline, Reversing Early Trump Move

(Bloomberg) — Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone XL oil pipeline hours after becoming president on Wednesday, killing once again a cross-border project that had won a four-year reprieve under his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.In one of his first major environmental actions, Biden will revoke TC Energy Corp.’s pipeline permit via an executive order because it doesn’t “serve the U.S. national interest,” according to fact sheet from his transition team.The move brings Keystone’s fate full circle, repeating a decision made in 2015 by President Barack Obama to keep the pipeline from crossing the border. Trump reversed that in 2017 on his fourth full day in office over the objections of environmental groups.TC Energy said it was “disappointed” and would suspend work on the project, leading to the layoff of thousands of workers. The decision overturns “an unprecedented, comprehensive regulatory process that lasted more than a decade and repeatedly concluded the pipeline would transport much-needed energy in an environmentally responsible way,” said the Calgary-based company.TC Energy shares pared losses after initially trading at $56, down 1%, on the news.Environmentalists are counting on the latest rejection — coming more than a dozen years since the pipeline was first proposed — to stick. They argue the project would provide an outlet for heavy Canadian oil sands crude extracted in Alberta through particularly energy-intensive processes that ratchet up its carbon footprint.“Putting a stop to the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline immediately and once and for all would be an important first step and testament to the leadership of the diverse grassroots movement that has long pushed to stop it and other harmful pipelines,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, a senior vice president with the environmental group League of Conservation Voters.Biden promised the action on the campaign trail, yet his formal step still provoked outrage from oil industry leaders, some Canadian interests and labor unions that support the project.“The Biden administration has chosen to listen to the voices of fringe activists instead of union members and the American consumer on Day 1,” said the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters in an emailed statement based on news reports before the action.Construction of Keystone XL already began last year, jump started with a $1.1 billion investment by the province of Alberta. Whole segments of the line, including one that crosses to U.S.-Canadian border, have already been built.TC Energy has worked to make the project more palatable to a Democratic administration, inking labor agreements with four major pipeline unions last August, agreeing to sell an equity stake in the line to indigenous communities along the route and promising to power it entirely with renewable energy.Still, Keystone XL has been a lightning…