President-elect Joe Bidens campaign promise to phase out oil probably signals the end of the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline and threatens the future of Dakota Access, another major crude conduit.
Obstructing pipeline projects is one way Mr. Biden could accelerate Americas shift toward renewable energy, by making oil more difficult and expensive to move around. Other policies that require legislative signoff would be more challenging to implement unless Democrats won control of the Senate.
In the absence of legislation, youre going to try to do what you can through administrative action, said Christine Tezak, managing director at energy research firm ClearView Energy Partners LLC.
Mr. Bidens campaign has said he would revoke a presidential permit that Keystone XL needs to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. The move is likely to doom the $8 billion initiative to bring crude from the Canadian oil sands to the American Midwest.
Mr. Biden hasnt publicly weighed in on Dakota Access, though Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as a U.S. senator, joined dozens of members of Congress in filing a legal brief earlier this year supporting efforts to shut down the pipeline, which runs some 1,200 miles from North Dakota to Illinois and has been operating since 2017.
