As I mentioned here last week, TransCanada's NAFTA Chapter 11 claim is now over, after the State Department issued a Presidential permit for building the Keystone XL pipeline. The transcript of President Trump talking about this with TransCanada's CEO is here, and the ICSID web site "notes the discontinuance of the proceeding."
But wait, is it really over? This is from the transcript:
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Russ. And I know the voters appreciate this. Some of them expressed it very, very strongly. The workers definitely appreciate it. The building trades’ heads didn’t, but now maybe they’re going to start to. Where are my building trades guys? I think they’re going to start to, because other people were not going to be signing this bill. That I can tell you. And if it ever did get done, it would be years. But I don’t think it would have ever gotten done.
So we put a lot of people to work, a lot of great workers to work, and they did appreciate it. And they appreciated it, Russ, very much at the polls, as you probably noticed. And so we’re very happy about it.
So the bottom line -- Keystone finished. They’re going to start construction when?
MR. GIRLING: Well, we’ve got some work to do in Nebraska to get our permits there --
THE PRESIDENT: Nebraska.
MR. GIRLING: -- so we’re looking forward to working through that local --
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll call Nebraska. (Laughter.) You know why? Nebraska has a great governor. They have a great governor.
MR. GIRLING: We’ve been working there for some time, and I do believe that we’ll get through that process. But obviously have to engage with local landowners, communities. So we’ll be reaching out to those over the coming months to get the other necessary permits that we need, and then we’d look forward to start construction.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. I’m sure Nebraska will be good. Peter is a fantastic governor who’s done a great job, and I’ll call him today.
I assume TransCanada will file a new lawsuit if Nebraska does not grant the necessary permits. It will be interesting to see how Trump reacts if the federal government is sued based on the actions of Nebraska.
