White House says unusual to ‘pause’ Keystone XL pipeline review

“There is a few local opposition, but we don’t have local or inter-state projects that are attracting the same level of scrutiny as Keystone XL seems to have”.

The U.S. State Department will continue reviewing the Keystone XL pipeline project even as it considers a request from builder TransCanada Corp.to pause its evaluation of the controversial project.

TransCanada said a ruling in Nebraska would take seven to 12 months.

“Obama’s been pretty outspoken on his views, so why push him?”

Prior to TransCanada announcement, the White House said it expects President Obama to make a final decision on Keystone before he leaves office but did not give an exact timeline.

The request by Calgary-based TransCanada has been widely interpreted as an attempt to avert an impending “no” from Obama to the almost 1,200-mile (2,000-km) cross-border pipeline.

Opponents of the project have been increasingly confident that the president would ultimately reject it, but Obama has suggested that its political boosters and to a few degree its detractors have overstated its potential effects.

“We’d like to finish this review process as swiftly as possible, we have a commitment to do that and we’re going to continue our review”, she said.

The company, TransCanada, made its request in a three-paragraph letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, citing legal challenges it said had prompted it to change tactics. But in the meantime, the review is proceeding. “We say, deny TransCanada’s request to suspend by rejecting this pipeline!”

Environmentalists were likely still rejoicing after the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline asked the USA government Monday to suspend its permit application for the ambitious, almost 1,200 miles-long project that would transport crude oil from Canada down to the Gulf Coast. “We’ve tried to stay out of the politics of this situation and focus on the things we’re capable of doing”, he insisted. “TransCanada appears to be thinking that “nothing” is better than ‘no'”.

But the project divides Democrats, so any decision by Obama risks alienating a faction of his party.

The extraction and processing of a viscous oil called “bitumen”, excavated from vast formations of sand just below the surface of Alberta’s northern region, has come under fire because it requires more energy than many other oil operations. The U.S.is set to elect a new president on November 8, 2016.

Clinton’s history with the project is deeply convoluted and could present a problem with her among progressives who tend to favor Senator Bernie Sanders, who has opposed the pipeline vigorously from the start. And the need for efficient, modern, safe transportation remains critical. Pipeline expansions by Enbridge also relieved a few of the pressure. That’s less than half the price when the Keystone XL pipeline was proposed in 2008.

Though the State Department concluded in a 2014 review that the pipeline would not increase carbon emissions, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in February that recent drops in oil prices change the picture. If the company’s request is granted, it could punt a decision on the project to the next administration.

TransCanada’s postponement bid may provide an honourable out for both governments, said David McLaughlin, the former head of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy and a one-time chief of staff to prime minister Brian Mulroney.

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

TransCanada has already built a 487-mile-long leg of Keystone that runs from Cushing, Okla., to Nederland, Texas.