News & Alerts
February 18, 2020 INTERIOR DEPARTMENT APPROVES RECORD OF DECISION APPROVING RIGHT-OF-WAY FOR KEYSTONE XI PIPELINE IN MONTANA
Following the State Department’s court-ordered update to its 2014 Keystone XL Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) published on December 20, 2019, U.S. Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt signed a Record of Decision (ROD) on January 22, 2020, approving a 30-year right-of-way grant to TC Energy for construction of its Keystone XL Pipeline across 44 acres of federal-managed lands located in Montana. The area of the project affected by the ROD covers a portion of the pipeline route from the Saskatchewan-Montana border crossing to Steele City, Nebraska. The ROD can be viewed in its entirety at https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/projects/nepa/1503435/20011555/250015801/Keystone_ROD_Signed.pdf. The decision was issued after extensive environmental review, tribal consultation and public input over several years related to the environmental impacts of the project. Along with the right-of-way grant, construction of the pipeline also must be approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Western Area Power Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, each of which must be involved in certain decisions affecting the expansion and financing of necessary substations, grid connections and power lines. The BLM has been a cooperating agency at the request of the State Department, who remains the lead federal agency for the project. A comprehensive list of appendices and documents related to the ROD is available at https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/eplanning/projectSummary.do?methodName=renderDefaultProjectSummary&projectId=1503435.