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REUTERS
Six environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday to challenge its decision to approve construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
REUTERS
Six environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday to challenge its decision to approve construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
The groups told a federal court in Montana that the US State Department, which granted the permit needed for the pipeline to cross the Canadian border, relied on an "outdated and incomplete environmental impact statement" when making its decision earlier this month.
By approving the pipeline without public input and an up-to-date environmental assessment, the administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the groups said in their legal filing.
"They have relied on an arbitrary, stale, and incomplete environmental review completed over three years ago, for a process that ended with the State Department’s denial of a cross-border permit," the court filing says.
US President Donald Trump announced the presidential permit for the Keystone XL at the White House last week. Russ Girling, pipeline company TransCanada Corp's chief executive officer, and Sean McGarvey, president of North America's Building Trades Unions, stood nearby.
Trump, a Republican, said the project would lower consumer fuel prices, create jobs and reduce US dependence on foreign oil.
His Democratic predecessor, former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for US motorists.
"This tar sands pipeline poses a direct threat to our climate, our clean water, wildlife, and thousands of landowners and communities along the route of this dirty and dangerous project, and it must and will be stopped," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was the second one filed this week to challenge the Trump administration's recent moves to undo Obama's climate change regulations.
Conservation groups and the Northern Cheyenne Native American tribe of Montana sued the administration on Wednesday for violating the National Environmental Policy Act when it lifted a moratorium on coal leases on federal land.
Both lawsuits were filed in US District Court in Montana’s Great Falls Division.