Twenty-One GOP Attorneys General File Lawsuit Against Biden Administration over Keystone XL Pipeline

Twenty-One Republican Attorneys General filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration Wednesday Over the suspension of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The twenty-one Attorneys Genera,l led by Ken Paxton (TX) and Austin Knudsen (MT), filed the suit against President Biden in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in response to his executive order in January that stopped the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

In addition to Texas and Montana, the suit is joined by 19 other attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The complaint alleged that “This Administration has sought to leverage its power regarding U.S. foreign policy to unilaterally contradict Congress’s stated domestic policy regarding one of the most significant energy projects in a generation: the Keystone XL Pipeline. This he may not do.”

Knudsen said in a press release:

The power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce belongs to Congress – not the President. This is another example of Joe Biden overstepping his constitutional role to the detriment of Montanans. There is not even a perceived environmental benefit to his actions – his attempt to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline is an empty virtue signal to his wealthy coastal elite donors.

Knudsen added, canceling the pipeline shows the disrespect Biden has “for rural communities in Montana and other states along the pipeline’s path that would benefit from and support the project.”

The complaint continues:

Within hours of taking office, President Biden issued an Executive Order that purports to revoke the permit on the grounds that he has ‘an ambitious plan’ to ‘reduce harmful emissions and create good clean-energy jobs’ and that this completed pipeline would ‘not be consistent with [his] Administration’s economic and climate imperatives.’ The order itself relies on a permit provision that purports to allow such revocation by agreement from the Company holding the permit. But it cites no statutory or other authorization permitting the President to change energy policy as set by Congress in this manner.

Revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permits is a regulation of interstate and international commerce, which can only be accomplished as any other statute can: through the process of bicamerlism and presentment. The President lacks the power to enact his “ambitious plan” to reshape the ecconomy in defienace of Congress’s unwillingless to do so.

Paxton said:

His decision to revoke the pipeline permit is not only unlawful but will also devastate the livelihoods of thousands of workers, their families, and their communities. This administration continues to tout imaginary green-energy jobs, without any recognition that their actions in the real world will make it impossible for hard-working Americans to put food on the table.

As reported previously by Breitbart News, the job loss, some estimates project, will leave up to 70,000 Americans out of work. Trump had issued the presidential permit authorizing work on the pipeline. The permit created thousands of U.S. jobs, directly and indirectly.

The case is Texas v. Biden, No. 3:21-cv-65 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.