The state will release $20 million in bond money to the Transcanada Keystone Pipeline partnership. The move is another step toward dismantling the Keystone XL pipeline extension. It stalled after President Joe Biden pulled its federal permit in January 2021.
State legislators established the bond fund in 2019 to protect against any damages from the project. The state Executive Committee notes that the partnership has since sold off infrastructure needed to complete the pipeline, including tubing yards and pump stations.
The partnership’s attorneys wrote in a petition to the state that “there is no purpose for the security bond to remain in effect.”
Attorney William Taylor told legislators that "despite the occasional mention by political groups, there is no reviving the Keystone pipeline."
The Keystone XL project has been a contentious issue for over a decade. The project inspired Gov. Kristi Noem’s controversial riot-boosting legislation in 2019 to address protests over the pipeline. Noem criticized the Biden administration’s decision to halt the project as recently as June 2022.