President Obama Expected To Reject Keystone XL Plan Friday

“This is a day of celebration”, said Bill McKibben of the environmental group 350.org. One of the pipeline’s most vocal opponents, McKibben said the decision gives Obama “new stature as an environmental leader”. The project could also get a fresh look in 2017 if a Republican wins the White House and invites TransCanada to reapply. Earlier in the year, the company left the door open to suing the US government under NAFTA.

Keystone XL would have linked existing pipeline networks in Canada and the United States to bring synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in Illinois and, eventually, the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Mr Obama said the White House has informed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the decision.

President Obama is expected to reject the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, a victory for environmentalists who believed the project would increase dependency on oil.

The project was a major issue during the 2012 presidential campaign, when GOP candidate Mitt Romney said he would approve the pipeline.

“The Obama Admin’s politically motivated rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline is a self-inflicted attack on the USA economy and jobs”, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tweeted.

Obama also said that American industries have moved quickly to adopt renewable energy.

The State Department has been reviewing the project for much of Obama’s presidency, and the project has become a political football during presidential and congressional elections. Hundreds of miles of the projected route have already been completed.

TransCanada Corporation, the Canadian company that had hoped to build the pipeline, first sought the required presidential permit for the cross-border section in 2008.

The approximately 1,200-mile-long pipeline would have carried oil that requires more energy to pump from the ground and emits more greenhouse gases when it is burned, making it a particularly problematic project from a climate change standpoint.

The administration again delayed the decision – this time indefinitely – in April 2014, citing legal uncertainty in Nebraska.

November 6, 2011 – Obama announces he is rejecting the permit to build the Keystone pipeline.

A denial would come against the backdrop of an oil price slump that has diminished a few of the enthusiasm for new oil sands development in Alberta. When the company first proposed Keystone in 2008, oil was suffering an even bigger plunge and the global economy was collapsing.