TransCanada Suspends Request to Build Keystone Pipeline

John Hoeven (R-ND), a vocal Keystone XL supporter, blamed the Obama administration's lengthy review process for TransCanada's suspension request.

Reporter Matt Lee was amused Tuesday by spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau's contention that the State Department's review of the Keystone XL Pipeline, ongoing since 2008, would proceed "as swiftly as possible" in spite of TransCanada's request that State suspend the review. According to the Department of State, the project would create over 40,000 jobs and inject millions of dollars of tax revenue into communities along the pipeline's route.

As envisioned, Keystone XL would extend from Alberta's tar sands to Nebraska, where it will connect with existing pipelines carrying crude oil to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Meanwhile, with global oil prices persisting at the very low level of around $50 per barrel, oil sands developers are eager for more pipelines, since exporting oil by pipe is much less expensive than doing so by truck or train.

Recently, the Nebraskan Supreme Court approved a route for the pipeline through the state, allowing Transcanada to take private land through eminent domain.

TransCanada announced last month that it was changing strategy and would reapply for route approval through the Nebraska Public Service Commission, as pipeline opponents had hoped. A grassroots organization of over 70 local landowners has brought a fresh lawsuit against Transcanada in order to re-open the debate about the proposed path of the pipeline, and force state officials in Nebraska to delay the decision-making process.

"It is imperative that we look at the Keystone pipeline for what I believe it is: a distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward", she told voters in Iowa.

Mark Jaccard, a professor of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said that crude oil infrastructure investments are often delayed when oil prices are expected to remain down. Likewise, Obama's administration, after seven years of delay, seemed to discover a newfound sense of urgency when faced with the prospect of letting the next president make the call.

"Why not try to have the rejection, put the thing in abeyance and see who wins the presidential election?".

"TransCanada acknowledged the writing on the wall by requesting to suspend the review of its permit application", said a statement issued by Tom Steyer, the billionaire green activist who heads NextGen Climate.

That request is "pretty clever, though pretty transparent", Peter Erickson, senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Seattle, said. "Get the state stuff done and don't have them spinning their wheels, especially if you have to change something in your submission", he said. Companies operating in Canada's oil sands where production costs are high have been hard-hit by the market conditions.

State also concluded Keystone XL would be safer and generate fewer greenhouse gas emissions than transporting crude oil by other means.

Despite vocal opposition in Nebraska, the state's political leaders generally support the project.