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The Keystone XL pipeline is officially dead
The developer of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline abandoned the project Wednesday after a decade-plus effort.
Why it matters: TC Energy's decision ends one of the century's highest profile battles over climate change and energy. But the move is unsurprising.
- President Biden canceled a cross-border permit in January, prompting TC Energy to suspend construction on the project that would bring hundreds of thousands of barrels per day from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. markets.
- In addition to strong public and legal opposition from activists, market forces including the U.S. domestic production boom helped sap the project's momentum.
What they're saying: "This project is finally being abandoned thanks to more than a decade of resistance from Indigenous communities, landowners, farmers, ranchers, and climate activists along its route and around the world," said David Turnbull of Oil Change International in a statement.
Yes, butvia Reuters: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said: “We remain disappointed and frustrated with the circumstances surrounding the Keystone XL project, including the cancellation of the presidential permit for the pipeline’s border crossing,”
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also supported the project.
Catch up quick: TC Energy, then called TransCanada, first proposed the 1,200 mile pipeline well over a decade ago, but resistance mounted throughout the Obama administration.
- President Obama rejected it in late 2015, claiming approval would undercut U.S. leadership on climate change (among other reasons).
The decision came despite a State Department finding that approving or denying the project would not have a major effect on emissions because it was unlikely to affect the rate of oil sands extraction.
President Trump revived the project in 2017, but it still faced legal battles.
Taliban capture third-largest city in Afghanistan, 11th provincial capital in last week
The Taliban captured the cities of Ghazni and Herat on Thursday, the 10th and 11th provincial capitals to fall to the militant group in recent days, AP reports.
Why it matters: Herat is the third-largest city in Afghanistan. Ghazni is the closest provincial capital to Kabul to fall to the Taliban — putting their frontlines within 100 miles of the heart of Afgahn government. Capturing Ghazni also cuts off a key highway linking it with Afghanistan's southern provinces.
- A newly released U.S. military assessment suggests that Kabul could come under pressure within 30 days and that the Taliban could gain control of the country within months, per AP.
- Kabul is not directly under attack, but "the loss of Ghazni tightens the grip of a resurgent Taliban estimated to now hold some two-thirds of the nation," AP writes.
The big picture: The string of swift Taliban successes in the final weeks of the U.S. withdrawal has dented hopes that the Afghan military and allied groups will be able to hold off the insurgency, Axios' Dave Lawler reports.
- Afghan officials have been seeking air support from the U.S. following its withdrawal, but the Pentagon has not said whether it could conduct such operations.
Go deeper: Inside the Biden administration as Afghanistan collapses
For the first time since March 2020, nearly all American renters can now be evicted
Nearly all American renters can now be evicted, for the first time since March 2020 — and a white-hot housing market is making eviction much more attractive for landlords.
Why it matters: There's an enormous pool of federal money available to protect renters who have fallen behind. But it's not going to stop hundreds of thousands of households from being evicted.
The big picture: Pre-pandemic, evictions tended to run at a rate of about 1 million per year. Since the pandemic hit, various federal and state moratoriums have brought that number down sharply, by about 60%.
Driving the news: The federal ban on evictions is no longer in effect, thanks to the Supreme Court, and while a handful of state eviction bans remain, nearly all of those will be gone by the end of September.
The other side: The government has earmarked $46.5 billion in emergency rental assistance (ERA), which should be more than enough to cover existing arrears. The problem is that money isn't going to renters.
- It's distributed by the states, which are moving very slowly — New York State, for instance, has managed to spend less than 1.5% of its federal ERA funds.
By the numbers: According to the Census Bureau, 4.7 million American adults live in households "where eviction or foreclosure in the next two months is either very likely or somewhat likely."
- If they're evicted, those families are much less likely to be able to find and keep steady work, and much more likely to end up living in crowded conditions conducive to the spread of COVID-19.
- Goldman Sachs estimates that 750,000 households are likely to be evicted "in the fall and winter months."
The bottom line: The Supreme Court ruling is unlikely to unleash an immediate and massive backlog of evictions — such things wend their way through the courts slowly at the best of times, and the courts are understandably sympathetic to renters during a pandemic. But the number of evictions is still going to rise sharply over the coming months.