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TransCanada Corp. via Reuters
The Keystone XL pipeline is pictured under construction in North Dakota in this undated photograph released on Jan. 18
WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators on Friday urged President Barack Obama to quickly issue a permit for the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project environmental groups have vowed to keep fighting.
The senators -- nine Democrats and nine Republicans -- asked Obama to approve the pipeline because it will create jobs and reduce the need for oil from the Middle East. They were led by Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and powerful chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican. Both senators represent the booming Bakken oil region.
The pipeline is designed to carry oil from Canada and the Bakken formation and last year, Obama put it on hold citing environmental concerns with a portion of the route in Nebraska. The TransCanada Corp project needs a presidential permit because it would cross an international border.
Nebraska's state government could wrap up its work examining a new route by the end of the year. The State Department is working on a review that the senators hope will affirm the project is in the national interest.
In their letter, the senators urged Obama to issue a permit for the project "immediately afterward."
"Setting politics aside: nothing has changed about the thousands of jobs that Keystone XL will create," the senators said.
CNBC's Brian Sullivan speaks to Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada, regarding its revised proposal to build its Keystone XL pipeline project.
"Nothing has changed about the security to be gained from using more fuel produced at home and by a close and stable ally. And nothing has changed about the need for America to remain a place where businesses can still build things," they said.
The pipeline was designed to extend 1,661 miles to the Port Arthur, Texas, area from Hardisty, Alberta, moving 830,000 barrels of oil per day.
The southern leg of the line -- from Cushing, Okla., to Texas refineries -- did not need a special permit and work has already begun on that part.
The senators' letter comes just ahead of a large protest against the pipeline planned for the White House on Sunday by environmental groups.
Last year, similar protests drew thousands of people, and some 1,200 opponents were arrested. The protests were credited with slowing the State Department's review of what once was thought to be a routine regulatory approval.
"Keystone XL is still a crazy idea, a giant straw into the second biggest pool of carbon," said a coalition including 350.org, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace US, and Friends of the Earth, urging its members to attend.
"No one needs to get arrested this time — though that may come as the winter wears on. For now we simply need to let the president know we haven't forgotten, and that our conviction hasn't cooled," the groups said.
The timing and design of the senators' letter is aimed at reminding Obama of public support for the project, Hoeven said in an interview.
"We're concerned that the last time opponents demonstrated around the White House, at a time when it looked like State was ready to approve the project, the administration deferred it," Hoeven said.
Congress has repeatedly pushed Obama to approve the project. Last December, Republicans inserted language in a payroll tax cut bill giving Obama a 60-day deadline to make a decision.
In January, he ruled the administration needed more time to evaluate a change in the route through Nebraska, aimed at avoiding a sensitive environmental region.
Republicans accused him of playing to the environmental movement ahead of the election. In Congress, proponents pushed to override Obama's call and approve the pipeline themselves, but a vote in the Senate fell four votes short of passage.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney raised the issue as gasoline prices surged, pledging he would approve the pipeline on his first day in office.
Obama has said he supports the jobs created by the U.S. boom in oil production, and backed the southern leg of the project earlier this year. But he has also pledged to address climate change, which environmental groups argue would be accelerated by more development of Canada's oil sands.
Both green groups and the oil industry see Obama's pipeline decision as a test of his political priorities.
"I really feel if he doesn't approve it, that would just create more momentum in the Congress for us to approve it ourselves," said Hoeven, who championed last year's close vote in the Senate to fast-track the pipeline.
Analysts have said they think Obama eventually will approve the pipeline but the timing of the decision is in question.
"Approval will not be quick," Moody's credit rating agency said in an outlook for investors earlier this week.
Republican Rep. Lee Terry also wrote Obama on Friday, saying he is worried additional delays by the State Department could lead Canada to look for other oil buyers.
"Will the United States be a partner and recipient or will the vast majority of the resource be sold to China or some other country," said Terry, a Nebraskan who led efforts in the House of Representatives to fast-track the pipeline.
Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality is wrapping up its review with a public meeting on December 4. Governor Dave Heineman must then approve the project, something oil industry groups said expect by early January.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department, which oversees the administration's review, is preparing a supplemental environmental impact statement.
"When the SEIS is completed in draft form, we will release it for public comment consistent with NEPA," the National Environmental Policy Act, said a State Department official, who did not say how long the comment period would be.
The report will help the State Department determine whether the project is in the national interest, a decision it makes in consultation with other administration officials, considering issues such as climate change concerns and jobs.
The State Department has said it does not anticipate concluding its work before the first quarter of 2013.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
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The oil is coming down from Canada to be put on ships to deliver other places than the US. How is this going to help our oil prices? And we are very low on water in the Mid-West, one oil spill and there are going to be major problems with the Ogallala Aquifer. See the other story on dought, water scare today on MSNBC.
The amount of full time jobs that this is suppose to create is around 500. I don't think there are enough benefits to out-weigh the cons of this project.
The Keystone XL pipeline will lower unemployment by .01 % (one hundredth of one percent) for two years. Then it goes back up again. I'll see all you global warming skeptics next "summer".
How many are the total of the House Representatives in the Congress?
How many are the total of the Senators in the Congress?
Check the pros and cons before the building of the pipeline. Check the potential natural disaster, e.g. quake, before the final decision. Check the potential terrorist's threats before presenting to the public.
Are they clueless to what expansion of these practices costs? Are they oblivious to the consequences downstream? New reports are even more dire than the initial reports of 7x rare cancer rates and toxic air. To expand these practices when other countries have proven clean alternatives are successful and profitable for both state and citizen must be the mandate of dinosaur madmen drunk on greed. Without even touching on the 2-4000 lbs of boreal forest floor that needs to be moved for ONE barrel of oil, or the millions of gallons of water, harvested from our glacier parks, contaminated, stored, seeping toxic slew, this is the ultimate corporate profits for public liability. Our (probably fraudulent - Election Fraud is going to court) does not act as though they care one bit about our citizens, our health or our future.
funny thing about these oil guys and ranchers
im reading a book called the american west by dee brown
worth reading
they want you to believe that texas is the all american state when in fact it was the Spanish who became Mexican who drove the cattle up
texans were first mexicans
now also the Indians and there land deals - before they would be used to handshakes not contracts they would not understand the language but i bet it's in their history books and paintings
the cattle was spanish bred it is best reared in the Mexican climate the american ones are mutations
i read it because i didn't know really the history now i do i'm not sure if we teach the same history in schools
just saying that all these oil and cattle barons owe it all to the mexicans
The states that have the pipeline going across them if approved should be paid well for the land use/rent, and all costs of spills/accidents should be paid by the companies running/using it. How about opening up the southern central CA national reserves for more oil some day, the fields around Bakersfield? These were kept untapped because of need during emergencies like a major war that disrupts imports and because the Navy at the time it was tagged not to be tapped needed a lot of oil/fossil fuels to power their ships, but that was before the expansion of nuclear powered ships and sub so there is little need for military ships to use fossil fuels. I have not problem with tapping all national reserves quickly to get off of foreign supplies as long as we move to have all autos/trucks/combustion engines moved to other power like electric or renewables within 20-30 years, or less. However we do need to keep a large supply of oil on earth for other things like chemicals and pharmaceuticals prodution, lubricants, solvents, plastics, etc. or our future generations will look at ours as the most wasteful of precious nonrenewable crude oil (took hundreds of millions of years of dinasours, plants, etc. decaying and turning to oil underground to get what we have now, and haven't burned up already).
Smarten Up.
There are already Thousands of Miles of Oil & Gas Pipelines all over the U.S. There's an Array of Pipelines from Louisiana to the West Coast, East Coast to Maine & crisscross everywhere. There has been for many Decades. This XL Pipeline is just 1 more. Not that big a deal.
As to whether it's exported or stays here in the States has Extremely little to do with the Price. Prices are set by the World Market & Adjusted by type/grade. You can Drill, Process & Use the Oil in your own State & the Price is still Set by the World Market.
When the Pipeline is done, There will be many more Jobs made Permanent for Maintenance, repair, Process the Oil Even if exported in Port fees. Every State involved will receive annual transport fees as long as the Line is in use. If eventually removed, the States will receive additional fees.
I can understand the GOP wanting the pipeline after all they are ones who get their political skids greased by the oil barons...But the 9 democrats have sold us out..follow the money I wonder how much they received in their campaign chest to push this environmental disaster on the USA...and piping this oil from Canada only helps the Oil corporations because all that oil is sold on the global market for whatever they can get and it will not have any effect on gas prices...Nothing in it for us except the potential environmental disaster that can and will happen..and the taxpayers get stuck with the bill and the mess. The jobs created are short term ...we have nothing to gain and everything to lose..pretty much the same thing they want to do to Alaska to mine gold and copper and create the worlds biggest open sulfur pits in the middle of salmon land..Only so a few can profit and the rest can die from poisoned water and air..Of course they promise jobs but all the good upper echelon jobs are always imported from outside the back breaking jobs they will use local Indian populations...promises promises..we don't really need it to survive..Its all about money that trickles up to the top.
The pipeline only provides temp jobs and will only benefit the companies but not the country. What a LAUGH!
We're in the 21st century, let's stop running the world on 19th century technologies.