http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-to-deny-keystone-pipeline-2012-1The Obama administration is expected to reject the controversial Keystone Pipeline this afternoon, according to Fox News.
Transcanada will however be able to reapply with an alternate route going through Nebraska.
The administration will be unlikely to approve the pipeline under the tight timeline included in the payroll tax cut extension, which requires a decision by February 21
Recently, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had this to say about the delay in the project:
"The State Department runs this process, as you know, which is a precedent that long predates this administration. The delay in the review was a result of concerns in Nebraska about the route by which the pipeline was meant to take -- the route the pipeline was meant to take through Nebraska and how it would affect the aquifer there -- concerns that were expressed by a number of stakeholders there, including the Republican governor of Nebraska.
When the State Department decided that those concerns were legitimate and there needed to be an alternate route, that began another process, and this process requires the careful weighing of a variety of criteria, and that has always been the case.
Everyone -- a lot of people, and certainly we made clear back in December that a political effort to short-circuit that process for ideological reasons would be counterproductive because a proper review that weighed all the important issues in this case could not be achieved in 60 days -- according to the State Department, which, again, runs this review process.."
Why the controversy?
The project has been the subject of a heated debate. Those in favor of the pipeline point to the 8.5% unemployment rate, and point out that the pipeline could create much-needed high-paying jobs. Moreover, it would provide cash-strapped governments with tax revenues. On the other hand after the BP Deepwater spill of 2010 and ExxonMobil's July 2011 pipeline spill, environmentalists are pressuring the Obama administration to nip the project in the bud.