TransCanada Corp. filed a claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement Friday seeking $15 billion over the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.
The company filed the claim seeking arbitration under the trade agreement, arguing that they had reason to believe that they would emerge and win approval to build the Keystone pipeline, which was ultimately rejected by the Obama administration in November.
In the filing, TransCanada said that the U.S. spent seven years using “arbitrary and contrived” analyses and justifications as they delayed making a final decision.
“None of that technical analysis or legal wrangling was material to the administration’s final decision,” TransCanada said in the filing. “Instead, the rejection was symbolic and based merely on the desire to make the U.S. appear strong on climate change, even though the State Department had itself concluded that denial would have no significant impact on the environment.”
The administration announced in November that the pipeline was not in the national interest.
The Keystone XL pipeline would have carried Canadian crude oil from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, but was opposed from the start by climate change organizations. Republicans had pushed for the administration to approve the pipeline, partly as a job creation tool.
