Obama will not suspend Keystone pipeline decision

“TransCanada has not withdrawn their permit application”, she said, adding that the company asked that the review process be suspended.

TransCanada expects a seven to 12 month approval process for its current route application. The request seeks a “pause” in the permit review. It would transport up to 830,000 barrels of carbon-laden tar sands bitumen each day from Canada to refineries in Texas, and also connect to the Bakken shale oil fields in North Dakota.

This map depicts the proposed locations of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

TransCanada has said it applied for approval with the Nebraska Public Service Commission because of ongoing legal challenges to the pipeline route that former Gov. Dave Heineman approved in 2013.

Facing a possible rejection and plummeting oil prices, the Canadian company that has been seeking to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline for years has asked the United States State Department to delay a decision on approving the project.

President Barack Obama will decide the fate of the Keystone XL oil pipeline before he leaves office, The White House told reporters Tuesday.

TransCanada first proposed building the Keystone XL pipeline seven years ago.

“The only difference now is TransCanada knows they are about to have their permit rejected, so they are scrambling”, Kleeb said in an email. “It’s one of the great victories for this movement in decades”.

And many predicted the outcome wouldn’t be good news for TransCanada.

Last year, 34 state lawmakers – more than two-thirds of the Legislature – signed a letter urging Obama to approve the project. “It will be a sign of his solidarity with this remarkable movement when he comes right out and says that”.

Trudeau’s Liberal team was rocked in the final week of last month’s federal election after The Canadian Press revealed his campaign co-chair Dan Gagnier was advising TransCanada on how to lobby a new government on Energy East. Gagnier resigned and the Liberals went on to a stunning majority, but the incident raised the hackles of conservatives and progressives on either side of the polarized pipeline debate. “Get the state stuff done and don’t have them spinning their wheels, especially if you have to change something in your submission”, he said. That’s exactly what TransCanada is doing here. “Blow the whistle today and end this game”.

Domina also said TransCanada should be required to remove the pipeline once it has outlived its usefulness, another point the company has declined to include in land leases.

But the project divides Democrats, so any decision by Obama risks alienating a faction of his party. They contended that any dispute over the pipeline’s path through Nebraska wouldn’t change in impact of the pipeline on the environment.

Wall said the indirect cost could be even higher – possibly in the billions – because Saskatchewan companies are continually selling crude at the lower, landlocked price, which “deprives them of the chance to reinvest”.

But she says luckily, Keystone is not the only game in town and while activity has slowed down, there is still construction and expansion in the Hardisty area’s oil and gas industry. “The facts on the ground clearly show that Keystone XL fails the President’s climate test, and he should reject it now”.

For the record, all three Democratic presidential candidates oppose the pipeline and all Republican candidates (whatever number there is) support it.

Obama has long argued that he would judge the pipeline based on whether it accelerates the effects of climate change, and secondarily on whether it would significantly affect how much Americans pay for energy.