Late last year, after years and years of dilly-dallying, President Obama nixed the planned Keystone XL pipeline extension, though he’d admitted that “This pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”

Indeed, the U.S. State Department and EPA had found no significant environmental threats in the planned pipeline, which would have created thousands of short-term and some long-term jobs in America and Canada, helped keep oil and gasoline prices down here and around the world, and provided safer transport (than rail or truck) of Canadian crude to refineries that would transform it to gasoline and other products in more environmentally friendly ways than those used by refineries in China and other countries that now become the likely destination for the crude.

Now TransCanada, the corporation that planned the pipeline, is suing the United States Government (aka the Obama Administration—that is, after all, all Obama seems to recognize as the U.S. government) for violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Globe and Mail reports:

On Wednesday, TransCanada said in a news release that the $15-billion (U.S.) claim it will make through its NAFTA action represents the initial estimated loss of value. “TransCanada has invested billions of dollars in assets that have now been rendered useless for the intended purpose, specifically the transportation of Canadian and American oil.”

The midstream energy firm said it had every reason to expect its application would get a green light, as the application met the same criteria the U.S. State Department applied when approving applications to construct other, similar cross-border pipelines.

“The U.S. State Department acknowledged the denial was not based on the merits of the project. Rather, it was a symbolic gesture based on speculation about the perceptions of the international community regarding the administration’s leadership on climate change and the President’s assertion of unprecedented, independent powers,” TransCanada said.

This is going to be interesting.