Obama rejects pipeline — for now

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Raising the stakes on a bitter election-year fight with Republicans, President Barack Obama on Wednesday rejected a Canadian company’s plan to build a U.S.-spanning, 1,700-mile pipeline to carry oil across six U.S. states to Texas refineries.

Though the project promises thousands of temporary jobs for the recovering U.S. economy, Obama said a February deadline set by Congress would not allow for a proper review of potential harm from the $7 billion Keystone XL project.

“As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” Obama said.

The plan proposed by Calgary-based Trans- Canada would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Republicans assailed Obama’s decision as a job-killer and said the fight wasn’t over.

And the State Department said the decision was made “without prejudice,” meaning TransCanada can submit a new application once a route through environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska is established.

Russ Girling, Trans-Canada’s president and chief executive officer, said the company plans to do exactly that. If approved, the pipeline could begin operation as soon as 2014, Girling said.

Republicans were not assuaged.

Newt Gingrich, campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination in South Carolina, called Obama’s decision “stunningly stupid,” adding: “What Obama has done is kill jobs, weaken American security and drive Canada into the arms of China out of just sheer stupidity.”

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., has said of the Canadian crude oil: “It’s going to go to China if we don’t build it here.”

But Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada Corp.’s president for energy and oil pipelines, said last week the company soon will have a new route through Nebraska “that everyone agrees on.”

For now, though, Mitt Romney, the Republican nomination front-runner, called Obama’s decision “as shocking as it is revealing,” adding that it “shows a president who once again has put politics ahead of sound policy.”

House Speaker John Boehner said Obama was breaking his promise to create jobs.

“This is not the end of this fight,” said Boehner, R-Ohio. He called the pipeline good for the U.S. economy and a major job creator.