Keystone XL pipeline halted after Biden blocks permit

Miles of pipe sit in North Dakota ready to be used for the Keystone XL pipeline (FILE)

The Keystone XL pipeline's developer has halted all construction on the project months after its permit was revoked by the Biden administration.

The pipeline was set to carry oil 1,200 miles (1,900km) from the Canadian province of Alberta down to Nebraska.

Environmentalists and Native American groups had fought against the project for more than a decade.

President Donald Trump revived the pipeline in 2017, two years after it was rejected by President Barack Obama.

In a statement on Wednesday, Calgary-based TC Energy said it would work with regional regulators to dismantle their equipment and "ensure a safe termination of and exit from" areas where construction had been planned.

On his first day in office President Joe Biden cancelled a permit to allow the project to cross into the US amid concerns that it would worsen climate change.

Mr Biden's decision came over the objections of US lawmakers, including members of his own party, who said the project would have created energy sector and construction jobs for American workers.

On Wednesday, a group of Republican senators introduced legislation that would force the Biden administration to account for the number of jobs lost due to the project's cancellation.

"The Keystone XL pipeline would have strengthened US energy independence while supporting thousands of high-paying jobs in the US and Canada," Idaho Senator and bill sponsor Jim Risch said in a statement.

The group also condemned the Biden administration for waiving sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project - a Russian pipeline intended to deliver gas to Germany.

The bill, which is not expected to become law, would require the Secretary of Labor to report to Congress the number of jobs estimated to have been lost due to the project's cancellation.

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While visiting US troops stationed in the UK during a trip to the G7 conference on Wednesday, Mr Biden said that climate change represents the "greatest threat" to US national security.

"This is not a joke. You know what the Joint Chiefs told us the greatest physical threat facing America was? Global warming," he said.

"There will be significant population movements, fights over land, millions of people leaving places because they're literally sinking below the sea in Indonesia, because of the fights over what is arable land anymore," he added.