The Keystone XL pipeline was to carry the Bitumen (very heavy crude) from the Oil Sands region of Alberta south to US refineries. Along the way, it was to pick up some 100,000 bbls of oil per day from the Bakken Play in North Dakota and Montana (light sweet crude). The US has had, for some time, the legal ability to export refined products, and now to export crude oil as well, so this transshipment and refinery supply would benefit producers and refiners alike, with excess product being able to be exported as well from the Gulf Coast.
For Canadian producers, this would mean secure transport to a ready market, where attempts to export crude oil and CNG have been largely thwarted by court actions, either from environmentalists, First Nations, or both.
What it means to the US, aside from the above:
First off, this is a privately funded (Industry pays the bills) project. Government gets to say yea or nay, but that, aside from regulations and stipulations for environmental and other purposes (adding cost, whether necessary or not), is what government puts in. The rest, from leasing rights of way, construction costs, infrastructure, etc., are on the entities building the line, as are the operating costs. Profit should go to the company operating the pipeline. Corporate profits are already taxed.
If Trump is proposing a "better deal" that includes taxing oil pipelines, what about the other pipelines which carry everything from natural gas to water to cooking oil? How is this a "Better deal" for the companies involved, if they have to pay the government a cut off the top (A cost which will be passed on to consumers). It won't be a better deal for consumers.
Or is he proposing negotiating down right of way leases (worse deal for landowners). Or labor costs (not a better deal for people who need work).
It reeks of needless government intervention, and it is likely the pipeline would be operating by now without an already healthy dose of government involvement.
