Nebraska Pipeline Opponents Cheer State Dept. Announcement

The decision, announced during a State Department press briefing, sets President Obama up with an opportunity to reject the project entirely prior to his expected trip to the Paris Climate Summit that starts at the end of the month.

“We have communicated our decision to continue our review and we’ve communicated that in writing today”, State spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.

TransCanada said it had reached the decision after listening to local communities, stakeholders and customers, and it will be amending the Energy East project application before the National Energy Board.

Environmentalists said TransCanada’s bid to halt its review – despite oil industry leaders’ criticisms of the lengthy scrutiny – was a ploy aimed at avoiding a presidential permit denial in hopes that a president with a more favorable view of the project would be elected next November. We say that because Clinton’s newfound opposition to Keystone was based on opposition to her from the Democratic left.

“We submit that, in the current circumstances, a similar suspension of the review process would be appropriate”, Delkus continued.

Kirby said a lot of interagency work has gone into the review. Supporters maintain it will create jobs and reduce US reliance on Middle Eastern oil. They argue that pipelines are a safer method of transporting oil than trains, pointing to recent derailments.

TransCanada’s chief executive officer said the company was preparing to work with Canada’s new Liberal government on Energy East as it reviews the country’s regulatory regime.

“The chance of approval is slim”, said Wenran Jiang, an energy expert and former special adviser to Alberta’s Department of Energy. They are either approved or deleted. These projects tend to have extremely vocal constituencies, making them a bit of a political third rail.

Ideally, Obama would act in America’s interest and approve the pipeline outright.

Maybe the failure of Keystone XL is not a big deal, given the fact that US oil imports from Canada have increased in recent years even without Keystone XL.

Regardless of what Obama does, Trudeau will likely be forced to offer greater clarity on his environmental policies at the upcoming climate conference and the various other global meetings he’s scheduled to attend.

President Barack Obama has yet to say whether he would support the project, but all of the Democrats running in 2016 are against it, while all of the Republicans running are for it, the AP reported.

While environmental groups may have won this battle, the war is not over, said Greenpeace campaigner Patrick Bonin, adding concerns remain in Quebec about the pipeline itself. The pipeline would ship crude produced from the oil sands of western Canada as well as from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. “The Harper government was never credible on greenhouse gas reductions; this government could be very different”.