Donald Trump said Thursday he would approve the Keystone XL pipeline as president, but he wants the profits to go to the American people.
“My basic bias is to approve,” Trump told reporters in Bismarck, N.D., ahead of a major speech on energy. “Environmentally [pipelines] are better. But the people of the U.S. should be given a significant piece of the profits.”
The Republican presidential nominee said the profits would offset the potential costs of using eminent domain and other factors to build the pipeline.
“We’re going to use eminent domain,” he said, because “without eminent domain that pipeline won’t go 10 feet.”
Eminent domain is used by governments to take land for special projects.
The Keystone XL pipeline project would bring oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast. President Obama rejected the project in November after seven years of review, citing the effects of climate change.
