Trump gives go-ahead to major new oil pipeline into Wyoming

 A Casper-based company plans to operate the pipeline, which would carry up to 550,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada through Montana and Wyoming.

President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 30, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP)—President Donald Trump granted a key approval Thursday for a major new oil pipeline from Canada into the U.S. that’s been dubbed “Keystone Light” over its similarities to a contentious project blocked by the Biden administration.

The three-foot-wide Bridger Pipeline Expansion would carry up to 550,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada through Montana and Wyoming, where it would link with another pipeline.

The pipeline needs additional state and federal environmental approvals before construction, which company officials expect to start next year. Environmentalists hope to stop the project over worries that the pipeline could break and spill.

At peak volume, the 650-mile pipeline would move two-thirds as much oil as the better-known Keystone XL pipeline, which was partially built before President Joe Biden, citing climate change, canceled its permit on the day he took office in 2021.

“Slightly different from the last administration. They wouldn’t sign a pipeline deal. And we have pipelines going up,” Trump said after signing his approval for it to cross the border between Saskatchewan and northeastern Montana.

Trump, in his first term, approved the Keystone XL project in 2020 despite concerns from Native American tribes about possible spills and environmental groups about fossil fuels’ contribution to climate change. Its cancellation by Biden frustrated Canadian officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, after Alberta invested more than $1 billion in the project.