A Keystone pipeline pumping station is surrounded by corn fields as farm buildings are seen in the rear, in rural Milford, Neb., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Native American tribes and environmental groups are pressuring a federal judge to shut down work on the construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to Nebraska less than two weeks after it started. They say pipeline sponsor TC Energy is rushing ahead amid the coronavirus pandemic, trying to complete significant work to make the pipeline harder to stop. President Donald Trump has championed the $8 billion line and last year gave it a special presidential authorization to circumvent a 2018 court ruling that blocked it. The same judge in Montana who made that ruling was presiding over a Thursday hearing to decide if construction should be halted.