GOP Congressman: A 'lawsuit could be filed' over Biden's cancellation of Keystone XL pipeline

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin says President Biden and his administration have opened themselves up to a legal challenge after the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project with an executive order. 

Mullin compared Biden's decision to the actions of the Venezuelan or Chinese governments.

"The issue that you have right now is what Biden did was unprecedented," Mullin said during an interview Wednesday on "Just the News AM."

He also said Biden "cancelled a presidential permit, that the president before him approved and the president before that, Obama, had issued the study and moved forward with the permitting process. So you had basically two presidencies that had looked at the Keystone pipeline, they took a deep dive in it, one started it, one approved it and then when the third one came in, he cancelled it for no reason."

"There was no review of the permitting process," Mullin said. "There was no oversight into it. It was purely political, in my opinion, a lawsuit can be filed in this case, just for the Commerce Clause. There are billions of dollars of private money and public money that has been invested in Canada and inside the United States and for a president to do it for political purposes, we don't do that inside the United States. That's what happens in Venezuela. That's what happens in China. That's what happens in Russia."

Mullin continued, "That's what happens in third world countries, not inside the United States. The reason why people do business inside the United States is because of the assurity. When they invest their money and if they manage it right they are guaranteed a return when there's a need for it. In this case, it was politically motivated and there's a lot of people that lost their investment here for no reason, no reason whatsoever, other than just pure bowing down to the environmental community."

Mullin said the Keystone pipeline was on track to being an "environmental friendly pipeline" with a goal of zero emissions by 2030.

He argued that the green lobby wants to "eliminate as much fossil fuels as possible" and "drive up the cost. He recalled seeing $4-a-gallon gas in Oklahoma under the Obama administration. 

"They want to drive it up so high that people will abandon them and force us to go to wind and solar but there isn't enough wind and solar out there to replace fossil fuels and they know that and so it's extremely hypocritical for what they're trying to do for nothing more than just a political plan," he said. 

Mullin also slammed Biden climate envoy John Kerry, also a former Secretary of state.

"You have John Kerry, that is who is leading the charge, and he's jetting all over the United States in his private jet. I don't see him pedaling a bike," he said. "I don't see him driving a Tesla across the United States, and he's flying in his private jet. So he's telling us not to do something, but he's going to do it himself. If that's not a double standard, what is?"

Mullin predicted that the U.S. won't be able to maintain its standing as a net exporter of oil products under Biden.

"Not underneath these terms," he said. "No way. We can't because we can't compete with other countries. The other countries have oil and gas reserves, too. We were able to compete with OPEC because of the regulations that, truthfully, that the Trump administration got rid of, because it was hurting the industry."