Trump vows to address Dakota Access, Keystone XL

President-elect Donald Trump is promising to address stalled energy infrastructure projects such as the Dakota Access and Keystone XL crude pipelines after he takes office in January.

Trump, in a televised interview aired today, bemoaned long permitting delays at agencies such as the US Environmental Protection Agency stymieing job creation. "People are waiting in line for 15 years before they get rejected. That is why people do not want to invest in this country," he said.

Trump said he hoped the controversy over the blocked 470,000 b/d Dakota Access crude pipeline will be resolved before he takes office on 20 January "... so I do not have to create enemies on one side or the other."

But Trump vowed that "when I get to office, if it is not resolved, I will have it resolved very quickly." He did not say what he would do exactly, although he said: "I think it is very unfair."

The controversy over the $3.8bn Dakota Access pipeline has pitted project partners Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners against a coalition of American Indian tribes and environmental groups led by the Standing Rock Sioux.

The 1,172-mile (1,886km) pipeline would transport crude from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to Illinois and then onward to the US Gulf coast. The US Army Corps of Engineers on 4 December rejected an easement the agency has argued is mandatory before construction can begin under Lake Oahe, a dammed portion of the Missouri river in North Dakota.

Canadian midstream company TransCanada has struggled for years to win approval to build the 830,000 b/d Keystone XL crude pipeline to transport oil from Alberta's oil sands and the Bakken formation to the US midcontinent. President Barack Obama last year denied the permit TransCanada needed to cross the US-Canadian border.

As for Keystone XL, "you will have a decision fairly quickly," Trump said.