Bloomberg is reporting that President Donald Trump intends to sign executive orders that will allow for the completion of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Both projects have been the flashpoints of environmental protests and obstruction by the Obama administration. Studies have suggested that environmentalist objections to both pipeline projects were bogus. Native American objections to the Dakota Access Pipeline suggesting that it would encroach on sacred lands were also shown to be bogus.

The Keystone XL pipeline will transport crude oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The Dakota Access Pipeline will transport product from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota to Midwest and Gulf Coast markets.

Unions, industry and energy independence advocates hailed the decision as a positive move to help open up North American energy resources for use and export. President Trump’s plan for an American economic revival depends on access to energy sources such as oil and gas to lower prices and thus spur job growth.

Environmentalists, naturally, are less than pleased. The environmental movement had found a willing ally in President Barack Obama, who had been keen to suppress the production and transport of fossil fuels in favor of Renewable Energy. Environmentalists had committed violent acts to try to stop both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, vandalizing equipment and attacking law enforcement.

The Obama administration had, by and large, turned a blind eye to these violent protests, leaving local law enforcement to handle them. The Trump administration is not likely to view such behavior with the same degree of benign neglect. Nevertheless environmental groups have vowed to continue to fight both projects.

The decision illustrates how elections have consequences.

In no way would a President Hillary Clinton have been so friendly to pipeline projects carrying fossil fuels across the United States. She would have been more likely to have doubled down on President Obama’s war on fossil fuel. Trump, on the other hand, tends to have a more expansive view on energy, supporting all forms of production, fossil fuels and renewables. The American economy is likely to benefit as a result.