Obama rejects Keystone XL pipeline, cites urgency of climate change

Citing the urgency of climate change, President Obama today "rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, capping a politically charged review of the oil project that lasted more than seven years and escalated into a broader debate on energy, climate change and the economy," Amy Harder reports for The Wall Street Journal.

"The Keystone XL pipeline would have moved as many as 830,000 barrels of oil a day, mostly from Canada’s oil sands to Steele City, Neb., where it would have connected with existing pipelines to Gulf Coast refineries," Harder writes. "Up to 100,000 barrels of that oil would have come from North Dakota’s booming oil fields. If completed, the pipeline system would have spanned 1,700 miles and would have crossed six U.S. states."

Obama met this morning with Secretary of State John Kerry then delivered remarks with Vice President Joe Biden, Manuel Quiñones reports for GreenWire. "Disagreement about the project ballooned over the years into a proxy war in the broader debate over climate change. And the Obama administration has increasingly focused on its environmental legacy. TransCanada and its supporters—even moderate Democrats—have pointed to State Department studies showing KXL wouldn't have a significant net climate impact. But environmental advocates maintained that killing the pipeline would cripple Canada's oil sands development efforts." 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement: “I wish I were surprised by the President’s decision to reject this jobs and infrastructure project. Given this project’s importance to North American energy independence, the question still remains not if but when Keystone will be built.” (Canadian Press graphic)