Washington rejects US-Canadian oil pipeline

Jan 18, 2012, 20:57 GMT

Washington - The United States rejected Wednesday a proposed oil pipeline that would have stretched from the Canadian border across the centre of the country to the Gulf of Mexico.

The approximately 2,700-kilometre-long project, known as the Keystone XL pipeline, had become a political hot button in recent weeks after the State Department delayed a decision on the project until 2013 to allow time for it to consider an alternative route through the central state of Nebraska.

Republicans in Congress had called the move a way for President Barack Obama to avoid angering either environmentalists or labour unions ahead of November's presidential elections. To press the issue, GOP lawmakers inserted language into a tax cut bill last month forcing a decision within 60 days.

'This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,' Obama said in a statement.

'I'm disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration's commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil,' he said.

The decision drew prompt outrage from Republicans in Congress, with Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner accusing Obama of not acting in the national interest by rejecting a project that would have created thousands of jobs and lessened US dependence on oil from the Middle East.

'The president's proposals are making the American economy worse rather than better,' he said, vowing that his party would continue to push for the pipeline despite the decision.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, however, insisted that the process had been derailed by an 'arbitrary' deadline and that the State Department's review process should have been allowed to run its course.

The state department said Wednesday that the Canadian company TransCanada could submit applications for future pipeline projects.

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