TC Energy Corporation is making an effort to recover more than $15 billion from the United States for the damages of the permit cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The corporation claims that the US government violated its free-trade obligations after the Biden administration cancelled the project’s permit on the president’s first day in the White House.

Environmentalists were delighted with the administration’s decision after a decade of arguing that the project, which aimed to carry oil from the tar sands of Canada into the United States, would worsen the climate crisis. To pay economic damages from the project’s cancellation, on July 2, 2021, TC Energy filed a Notice of Intent with the US State Department to initiate a legacy NAFTA claim under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. According to TC Energy, the permit cancellation would “directly lead to the layoff of thousands of union workers.” After the news of the energy company suing the US administration came up, a fire broke out in the Gulf of Mexico due to a pipeline burst. “We’re just not treating [climate change] like the planetary emergency it is,” Emily Atkin, founder of the Heated newsletter and MSNBC contributor, said in an interview. “Right now, everyone should be a climate reporter, and if you’re not a climate reporter right now, you will be, whether you realize it or not” Atkin added.