Orders signed on 2 pipelines

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to revive the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines.

He also signed an executive order to expedite environmental reviews of other infrastructure projects, lamenting the existing "incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process."

"The regulatory process in this country has become a tangled-up mess," he said.

Many of those environmental reviews are statutory, and the legislation that created them cannot be swept aside by an executive order. Trump's order on the Dakota Access pipeline directs the Army Corps of Engineers to "review and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law."

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The new orders came as the Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred the agency from awarding any new contracts or grants, part of a broader communications clampdown within the executive branch.

Closing out the day, Trump teased an announcement on one of his defining campaign promises: to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Big day planned on national security tomorrow," Trump tweeted Tuesday night. "Among many other things, we will build the wall!"

In an Oval Office signing of his executive orders before reporters, Trump said both pipeline projects would be subject to renegotiation. His order for the Keystone XL project "invites" the company to "resubmit its application."

He added, "Again, subject to terms and conditions to be negotiated by us."

The president also said he would want any new projects to make use of U.S.-made steel, though that requirement is not mentioned in his executive order.

"I am very insistent that if we're going to build pipelines in the United States, the pipe should be made in the United States," he told reporters.

In North Dakota, Energy Transfer Partners wants to complete the final 1,100-foot piece of the 1,172-mile pipeline route that runs under Lake Oahe. The pipeline would carry oil from the shale oil reserves in North Dakota to refineries and pipeline networks in Illinois.

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The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and other American Indian groups have protested the project, which they say would imperil their water supplies and disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites. The Army Corp of Engineers called a halt to the project in December to consider alternative routes.

Trump owned stock in Energy Transfer Partners, the company that is building the Dakota Access pipeline, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission. Last month, a spokesman for Trump said he sold all of his stock in June, but there is no way of verifying that sale, and Trump has not provided documentation of it.

Keystone XL

The executive order from Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline threatens to undo a major decision by President Barack Obama, who said the project would contribute to climate change because it would carry tar sands crude oil, which is especially greenhouse-gas intensive because of the energy it takes to extract the thick crude. Obama's announcement followed a similar finding by the State Department, which has reviewed applications for cross-border pipelines.

TransCanada, the project's Calgary-based owner, has said it would be interested in reviving the pipeline.

Terry Cunha, a spokesman from TransCanada, said in an email Monday that the company remained "fully committed" to building the project, although she declined to discuss the project's next steps.

But it was unclear what Trump's caution about renegotiation would mean for TransCanada's plans. Originally, TransCanada had planned to get about 65 percent of the steel pipe from U.S. manufacturers but other supplies from Canada.

On Tuesday, Trump said: "From now on, we're going to be making pipeline in the United States. We build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe. We're going to put a lot of workers, a lot of skilled workers, back to work. We will build our own pipeline, we will build our own pipes, like we used to in the old days.

"We'll see if we can get that pipeline built," he said. "A lot of jobs."

Speaking to reporters Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president supported energy projects "like Dakota and the Keystone Pipeline, areas that we can increase jobs, increase economic growth, and tap into America's energy supply more, that's something that he has been very clear about."

As proposed by TransCanada, the Keystone pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels a day from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast.

Oil industry pleased

As news of the move surfaced Tuesday morning, oil industry officials hailed it as overdue.

"Making American energy great again starts with infrastructure projects like these that move resources safely and efficiently," said Stephen Brown, vice president of federal government affairs at Tesoro Companies.

"We are pleased to see the new direction being taken by this administration to recognize the importance of our nation's energy infrastructure by restoring the rule of law in the permitting process that's critical to pipelines and other infrastructure projects," said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

In Canada, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed Trump's decision. "We have been supportive of this since the day we were sworn into government," Jim Carr, the natural resources minister, told reporters in Calgary, Alberta.

Environmentalists, by contrast, vowed to continue to fight the two pipelines.

Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard noted in a statement that a broad coalition of opponents -- "indigenous communities, ranchers, farmers, and climate activists" -- managed to block the projects in the past and would not give up now.

"We'll stand with them again if Trump tries to bring the Dakota Access Pipeline, or any other fossil fuel infrastructure project, back to life," she said.

Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org, which has fought both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, said the decision to allow the projects to move forward ignores the opposition expressed both through public protests and in comments to government agencies.

"It's a dark day for a reason, but we will continue to fight." McKibben said in a statement.

Members of Arkansas' all-Republican congressional delegation released written statements of support of Trump's orders.

"The fact that this was one of the first items on President Trump's agenda speaks volumes about how his administration will prioritize job creation, energy infrastructure and economic opportunity," Sen. John Boozman said.

Both pipelines "will lower energy costs and create jobs across the country and in Arkansas at places like Welspun [in Little Rock]," Sen. Tom Cotton said. "Producing more American-made energy also makes us safer by decreasing our reliance on the turbulent Middle East."

Rep. Steve Womack said it was "refreshing to have an administration willing to advance solutions supported by Congress ... than put radical interests above those of honest Americans."

Rep. French Hill praised Trump for "proving that he is serious about North American energy independence, job growth, and private infrastructure spending. ... Keystone has already produced over 600 jobs in central Arkansas and would create thousands of ready-to-launch private sector American jobs, while having a minimal impact on the environment."

Rep. Rick Crawford said the Keystone pipeline "has the potential to create thousands of American jobs and make our country less dependent on foreign oil."

Ryan Saylor, spokesman for Rep. Bruce Westerman, said the congressman "has long been a supporter of Keystone and believes it is an important step in North American energy independence."

EPA rules targeted

Meanwhile, Trump's media blackout orders came to light Tuesday as the EPA moved to delay implementation of at least 30 environmental rules finalized in the closing months of Obama's term, a potential first step to seeking to kill the regulations.

A summary of the actions posted in the Federal Register includes a long list of regulations that include updated air-pollution rulings for several states, renewable-fuel standards and limits on the amount of formaldehyde that can leach from wood products. Trump signed a directive shortly after his inauguration on Friday ordering a "regulatory freeze pending review" for all federal agency rules that had been finalized that have not yet taken effect.

Emails sent to the EPA and reviewed by The Associated Press also detailed specific prohibitions banning news releases, blog updates or posts to the agency's social-media accounts.

Similar orders barring external communications have been issued in recent days by the Trump administration at other federal agencies, including the departments of Transportation, Agriculture and Interior.

Staff members in the EPA's public affairs office are instructed to forward all inquiries from reporters to the Office of Administration and Resources Management.

"Incoming media requests will be carefully screened," one directive said. "Only send out critical messages, as messages can be shared broadly and end up in the press."

A review of EPA websites and social-media accounts, which typically include numerous new posts each day, showed no new activity since Friday.

Spicer said Tuesday that he had no specific information on the blackout.

"I don't think it's any surprise that when there's an administration turnover, that we're going to review the policies," Spicer said.

Doug Ericksen, the communications director for Trump's transition team at the EPA, said he expects the communications ban to be lifted by the end of this week.

"We're just trying to get a handle on everything and make sure what goes out reflects the priorities of the new administration," Ericksen said.

Staff members at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service also received orders not to issue any news releases, photos, fact sheets and social-media posts. After an email of the order leaked to the media, the agency said it would rescind the memo.

At the Transportation Department, employees received an email message Monday morning that was "broadly worded and hard to interpret," but which appeared to be a directive not to issue any news releases or post to social media, according to a department employee who wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

Over the weekend, employees at the Interior Department were temporarily ordered to stop making posts to its Twitter account after the official account of the National Park Service re-tweeted a pair of photos that compared those gathered for Trump's inauguration with the much larger crowd at Obama's swearing-in.

On Tuesday, the official Twitter account of the Badlands National Park published a series of posts Tuesday quoting climate science data that included the current record-setting high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The tweets were soon deleted.

Information for this article was contributed by Steven Mufson, Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis, Joe Heim and Scott Clement of The Washington Post; by Peter Baker, Coral Davenport and Ian Austen of The New York Times; by Michael Biesecker, John Flesher, Mary Clare Jalonick, Joan Lowy, Darlene Superville and Dan Elliot, Andrew Taylor of The Associated Press; by Billy House of Bloomberg News; and by Frank E. Lockwood of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Section on 01/25/2017