Obama denies Keystone XL pipeline permit
It's official: The Obama administration is denying TransCanada's application to build the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed $7 billion, 1,700 mile underground oil pipeline linking the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
"Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest," the State Department said in a statement. "The President concurred with the Department's recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest."
As part of deal last December extending the payroll tax cut for two months, Congress imposed a Feb. 21 decision on President Obama to issue or reject the permit. The administration has long maintained that the timeline pushed by Congressional Republicans did not allow enough time for a final decision, citing the need for an assessment of alternative routes for the pipeline in the sensitive Sand Hills area of Nebraska.
In November, the State Department said it needed additional time for such an assessment, vowing to make a decision by the first quarter of 2013 - after the 2012 presidential election. That timeline would have kept the pipeline decision, which pitted environmentalists against unions and the business community, from being an issue in an election year.
But Republicans were determined to get Mr. Obama on the record about the pipeline, which they say will create tens of thousands of jobs -- though their jobs claims have been disputed. GOP presidential hopefuls lashed out at the White House Wednesday over the decision, with frontrunner Mitt Romney saying, "President Obama's decision to reject the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline is as shocking as it is revealing."
"It shows a President who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy," said the former Massachusetts governor. "If Americans want to understand why unemployment in the United States has been stuck above 8 percent for the longest stretch since the Great Depression, decisions like this one are the place to begin."
House Speaker John Boehner said the president "is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese," adding, "the president is selling out American jobs for politics."
In a statement, President Obama said the decision was a result of "the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans," saying it "prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment."
He said the decision "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," adding that the administration plans to "look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security."
TransCanada could potentially reapply for a permit with a proposal that includes an alternate route for the pipeline through Nebraska. The review process for the current pipeline has been going on since 2008.
"Denial of the permit application does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects," the State Department said in its annnouncement.
Backers of Keystone XL say it will increase America's domestic oil production with the help of a friendly ally and create tens of thousands of jobs in the process. Organized labor has teamed up with the oil industry to back the pipeline, and both have been pressuring the Obama administration for approval.
Critics of the pipeline say it will have a hugely negative impact on the environment and potentially put large portions of the U.S. water supply at risk. They also say it will not lower oil prices because the international market will simply adjust supply to account for increased production.
The pipeline would carry a tar-like form of crude oil called "diluted bitumen" across a wide swath of the country, through farms and wilderness, with spills possible in sensitive areas. Critics note that turning tar sand into oil is far more energy intensive than refining conventional oil and point out that the process has already resulted in the creation of more than 60 miles of toxic holding ponds that kill birds and pollute waterways.
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Over two hundred thousand jobs just flushed down the drain! We can all thank Obama for that! We can thank him by remembering this when we go to the polls in November and VOTE HIM OUT OF OFFICE!
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Reply to this comment .by arthanyel January 19, 2012 2:50 AM EST
Your information is wildly inaccurate - probably because you saw it on Faux News.
The total number of TEMPORARY jobs that the XL pipeline would have created was estimated (by multiple organizations including the State Department) at about 5,000 in the US, and about 2,500 in Canada. Hardly 200,000. And the pipeline isn't dead - they are resubmitting a new application already - the only reason Obama had to act was the idiocy of the House Republicans playing politics.
I hope everyone remembers the House Republicans in November so they can be retired, which they richly deserve - as Scott Walker is going to be retired in Wisconsin!
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.by Lerianis4 January 19, 2012 2:58 AM EST
With all due respect, even some people in the industry were saying it was more like 2 THOUSAND jobs and the damage to the ecology if this pipeline had problems was NOT ********* WORTH IT!
You need to wake up and stop drinking the conservative and Rethuglican kool-aid here.
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Perhaps try drinking a glass of Clean Water while you still can!
LOL! is absolutely correct with your ridiculous and partisan attacks!
Dilma Vana Rousseff is the 36th and current President of Brazil. She is the first woman to hold the office. The daughter of a Bulgarian immigrant father, Rousseff was raised in an upper middle class household in Belo Horizonte. She became a socialist during her youth, and following the 1964 coup d'etat joined various left-wing and Marxist urban guerrilla groups that fought against the military dictatorship. Rousseff was captured and jailed between 1970 and 1972 and reportedly tortured. After her release, Rousseff rebuilt her life in Porto Alegre with Carlos Araujo, who would be her partner for 30 years.
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YOU win nothing, and only prove yet again you have nothing but vicious partisan attacks, and highly convoluted ideology like most conservative republicans today.
The current President of Brazil, Dilma Vana Rousseff, fought against the military dictatorship after the 1964 coup d'etat, something most of us would have done for freedom and liberty, and you have the audacity to attack her for doing something almost 50 years ago, that our American rebels did 235 years ago!
Why do you hate freedom and liberty?
-from an New York Times article April of 2010
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What is wrong with these really really STUPID Republicans ???
I see you're still parroting the typical fox/rush LIES and DECEPTIONS, which is all you and your ilk know today.
Your slurs on both the Brazilian President as well as President Obama only make you look like a juvenile ranter, since I already tried to straighten out your LIES about the Export-Import Bank of the United States, but apparently to no avail.
Again, from FactCheck:
Bogus Brazilian Oil Claims
Q: Did Obama loan $2 billion to Brazil's oil company to benefit China and George Soros?
A: The president had nothing to do with the loan, which the Export-Import Bank approved for Brazil to buy U.S.-made equipment and services.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/09/bogus-brazilian-oil-claims/
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Apparently, you hate CAPITALISM, and a bank making LOANS. In fact, the loan is being made specifically to finance purchase by Petrobras of U.S.-made oilfield equipment and services. The mission of the Ex-Im Bank is to encourage exports by making such loans.
Furthermore, none of President Obama's appointees had joined the Ex-Im board at the time of the vote, which was unanimous, and bipartisan. The Ex-Im Bank states: "In fact, at the time the Bank's Board consisted of three Republicans and two Democrats, all of whom were appointed by George W. Bush."
Take your highly-partisan political rhetoric with you, as you crawl back underneath the rock from which you slithered out from!
PROVE that highly-partisan political rhetoric and delusional attack!
LOL!....and this is from one of the original haters of Wiki!
..............likes to spew political rhetoric and parrot the usual fox/rush LIES and DECEPTIONS for the republican party so that BIG OIL can make larger profits with an EXPORT pipeline with TAX FREE PROFITS.
I suggest you get back on your "choo choo" and motor down the tracks, and leave the terrible debacle of the Keystone EXPORT fiasco to those that know exactly what heavy/sour, highly-corrosive "diluted bitumen" actually is, and the environmental mess they already have in Canada!
You're a JOKE, but prove how typical of the fox/rush parrots!
Your highly-partisan political rhetoric of LIES and DISTORTIONS 'trying' to support this Keystone EXPORT debacle, is right out of the fox/rush playbook by the rabid republicans supporting this mistake.
Maybe you got it from another conservative hate radio propagandist like michael savage for all I know! SSDD!
"Critics note that turning tar sand into oil is far more energy intensive than refining conventional oil and point out that the process has already resulted in the creation of more than 60 miles of toxic holding ponds that kill birds and pollute waterways."
Yes, the Canadians have already made a huge environmental mess where they are extracting the highly-corrosive "diluted bitumen" -- not to mention how energy intensive the process is, and how many millions of gallons of water it takes to produce the steam for extraction.
At the other end of the Keystone EXPORT pipeline, it takes much more refining of the heavy/sour, highly-corrosive "diluted bitumen" in order to get the diesel fuel for export, and only a few refineries can do it.
The American people would be the BIG LOSERS with this republican fiasco for their BIG OIL masters!
Again, your argument is moot, since this proposed Keystone EXPORT pipeline would carry highly-corrosive "diluted bitumen" -- 20-times the abrasive quality of OIL -- and with a length of almost 2,000 miles, would raise the danger of spills and leaks in many environmentally-sensitive areas, all for the TAX FREE PROFITS of BIG OIL, with the American people getting absolutely no benefits at all.
Maybe so, but this is not OIL, but highly-corrosive "diluted bitumen" that would be transported across many miles of the U.S. and across major rivers like the Missouri.
Try to get your "facts" straight for once, and leave the fox/rush propaganda of LIES and DECEPTIONS behind!
Sorry, but I've never belonged to any political party, and was just stating the facts, that this is an EXPORT pipeline, and the only ones that benefit from it, is BIG OIL and their TAX FREE EXPORT PROFITS, while the American people are the BIG LOSERS!
Try again, but please don't post any more blatant LIES like the Brazilian propaganda from the rabid, far-right delusional sources!