President Barack Obama on Friday will officially reject TransCanada’s application to build a massive pipeline to transport oil across the United States-Canada border, The Huffington Post has learned from multiple sources. Keystone XL would help replace the higher risk trucks, trains, barges and tankers now carrying oil to market, and would provide the USA with energy supply security by connecting US and Canadian producers to American refineries with a pipeline running four feet under the ground.
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In remarks from the White House, Obama cited several reasons behind the rejection, seeking to preemptively blunt likely criticism of the decision.
“I am disappointed the President today rejected the Keystone XL Pipeline, which has been under review for more than seven years and has cleared environmental reviews by his own administration”.
“The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy”, Obama said. “So if Congress is serious about wanting to create jobs, this was not the way to do it”.
Canadians want, he continued, a government they can trust (for) the protection of the environment, while being able to stimulate the economy.
“Second, the pipeline would not lower gas prices for American consumers. Our biggest and most successful businesses are going all in for clean energy”, he said.
“Worse, both he and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent years pretending to deliberate this decision”, Cotton said in a statement.
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, welcomed Friday’s announcement.
In a statement responding the news, new House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., described the decision as “sickening” but not surprising.
“By rejecting this pipeline, the president is rejecting tens of thousands of good-paying jobs”, Ryan said.
Over time, the pipeline took on symbolic value of epic proportions, elevated by environmentalist and energy advocates alike into a proxy battle for climate change. “But it’s just wrong”.
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Their positions shifted dramatically when “the environmental movement on the left” made Keystone a be all, end all, giving an ultimatum of sorts to politicians: “If you’re truly an environmentalist, you’re against this thing [constructing the pipeline]”.
