On: TC Energy scraps Keystone XL pipeline project afte...

[make3]

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Energy is a money game.

[fighterpilot → make3]

Adding costs due to adding inefficiency in the supply chain is definitely a bad thing, since you could easily achieve the exact same outcome with a tax instead.

[apendleton → fighterpilot]

This is true, but if new taxes are politically untenable (which, in the current US political environment, they definitely are), the choice isn't between inefficiency and a tax, it's between inefficiency and the status quo. Politics is the art of the possible.

[fighterpilot → apendleton]

Wouldn't the pipeline operators have willingly agreed to a levy or tax of some sort if the alternative is complete shutdown?

[apendleton → fighterpilot]

Probably, but even if they did, it's probably not within the power of the executive to create such a mechanism.

[fighterpilot → apendleton]

If that's the case, you have a good point.

[krastanov → fighterpilot]

Sure, but you should also just not give permits when the project is dangerous (which was what multiple agencies and courts had suggested in this case but one of the last three administrations was trying to overrule them)