The request comes as many anticipate President Barack Obama will reject the project, which has been a flashpoint in the debate over climate change and source of friction between the United States and Canada.
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“We’ve told TransCanada that the review process will continue”, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington Wednesday.
The GOP presidential field unanimously supports Keystone, while all the major Democratic candidates oppose it, including Clinton, the Democratic front-runner who oversaw the early phase of the pipeline review as Obama’s first-term secretary of state.
While most cross-border pipelines take less than a year and a half to approve or reject, the Keystone XL project has dragged on since September 2008 – before Obama was elected president.
The Obama administration is refusing a request from TransCanada to delay review of the company’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline.
The decision to move forward with the State Department review puts the project in jeopardy.
Obama is widely expected to reject the project following the State Department review, but the delay requested by TransCanada could take the matter out of his hands.
The company said the $12-billion project is scheduled to be completed by 2020.
The White House declined to comment but hinted Tuesday that the administration would not be receptive to TransCanada’s request.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd Chief Executive Steve Laut, whose company would be a customer of the pipeline, said he accepted the decision but would have preferred to have a Quebec export terminal since it would create more options and Quebec jobs.
“Absent a request for withdrawal, the department will continue to process the Keystone XL application”.
“I’m fairly confident in telling you that in the secretary’s view, respecting the process in this is respecting the time, and resources, and the energy, and effort that went into the review process to date”, Kirby said. The pipeline would run 1,179 miles from the Canadian oil sands in Alberta to refineries in Texas. All Republican candidates say they support it.
Environmental activists have spent heavily in hopes of defeating a project they say would drastically increase emissions blamed for global warming by enabling development of the oil sands.
Quebec will no longer host an oil export terminal for TransCanada’s highly criticized Energy East Pipeline, the Calgary-based company announced Thursday.
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TransCanada wants to build the 1,179-mile underground pipeline between Hardisty, Alberta, and Steele City, Nebraska, where it would meet up with existing pipelines.
