The companies installing the Keystone XL pipeline needed presidential approval before it could be used to bring oil sands from Canada to oil refineries on the Gulf of Mexico coastline. The Obama administration denied the permit in part because of the potential impact to waters on lands of the USA's First Nations. Under the Rivers and Harbors Act, the Army Corps of Engineers denied permits for expansion of coal export facilities near and pipelines crossing Native American lands. President Obama signed a proclamation returning ownership of the submerged lands of certain islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and approved regulations allowing traditional indigenous fishing in waters around the northern islands that are part of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument.
