Trump: Keystone XL court ruling ‘a disgrace’

President Trump slammed a federal judge’s late Thursday ruling that blocked the Keystone XL oil pipeline, calling it “a disgrace.”

“It was a political decision made by a judge. I think it’s a disgrace,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House Friday morning, heading to France.

“48,000 jobs. I approved it. It’s ready to start,” he added. The State Department has estimated that the project would provide up to 42,000 temporary construction jobs, but just 35 direct permanent jobs once completed.

{mosads}Trump indicated that his administration would appeal the ruling from Montana federal Judge Brian Morris to the San Francisco–based Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which has often ruled against his administration.

“I guess it’ll end up going to the 9th Circuit, as usual,” he said. “We’re slowly putting new judges in the 9th Circuit. Everything goes to the 9th Circuit, everything.”

Trump signed an executive order that led to Keystone’s approval days after he took office in January 2017.

Morris revoked TransCanada Corp.’s federal permit to build the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, stopping the company’s plans to start construction next year.

The judge said the Trump administration’s State Department didn’t adequately review the environmental impacts of the pipeline and didn’t justify why it reversed the Obama administration’s 2015 rejection of the project.

“The department’s 2017 conclusory analysis that climate-related impacts from Keystone subsequently would prove inconsequential and its corresponding reliance on this conclusion as a centerpiece of its policy change required the department to provide a ‘reasoned explanation,’” Morris wrote.

“The department instead simply discarded prior factual findings related to climate change to support its course reversal.”

The State Department could appeal, but it could also try to fix the problems Morris identified.

The State Department had argued that the federal court system doesn’t even have the right to review Trump’s approval, because it stems from his constitutional authorities.