Keystone denied
Posted Jan 18, 2012 8:34 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
U-S President Barack Obama has denied a permit to build the Keystone X-L Pipeline expansion.
Obama has agreed with the U-S State Department report that says such a pipeline, to carry Alberta oilsands bitumen to Gulf of Mexico refineries, is not in the U-S national interest.
In a statement, Obama says he doesn’t disagree with the merits of the pipeline but rather a deadline imposed by the republican congress to make a decision on the line by February 21st.
“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil,” reads the statement.
The decision doesn’t mean the project is dead, just that TransCanada Corporation must re-apply to the state department with a new route.
The project met with massive opposition in Canada and the United States in part because the original route travelled through a key Nebraska aquifer, though Calgary based TransCanada and Nebraska legislators have already agreed on a new route around the sensitive areas.
