Keystone Xl

The Obama administration has decided that it will not issue a permit before Feb. 21 for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, according to people with knowledge of the decision. The announcement, which could come as early as Wednesday, comes in response to a 60-day deadline Congress imposed in late December on the decision-making process for the permit as part of a deal to extend a payroll-tax break and unemployment benefits for two months.   Today's decision, expected from the State Department, would make official what the administration has said from the outset: that under current law, it cannot accelerate the permitting process, especially in light of the need for additional environmental reviews of a new path for the pipeline through Nebraska.

As the deadline looms for President Obama's Feb. 21 decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, the dogfight is focused on job numbers. Project proponents tout an enormous number of new jobs created by the pipeline, but a labor institute says those numbers are greatly inflated. New TV ads that began running Saturday, produced by the American Petroleum Institute, praise the pipeline as a source of desperately needed jobs, citing a figure produced by an industry-backed study that claims 20,000 jobs would be created.

The State Department said Thursday that it will delay consideration of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline to study alternative routes, addressing what it termed were environmental concerns about a posssible path through Nebraska's Sand Hills region. The extended review will push the approval process to early 2013 - past next year's presidential election. President Obama quickly issued a statement in support of the decision. “Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood,” Obama said.

In a sign of hardening skepticism toward the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a top Senate Democrat has sent a letter to the Obama administration asking about a possible conflict of interest between the pipeline operator and a company handling the environmental impact study of the project. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week cautioning that the environmental studies must be impartial.

The question of whether to build an oil pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas is turning out to be one of the most important political decisions of the year for the Obama administration. It's an agonizing choice because the costs and benefits of building it are so closely balanced; opponents have overstated the environmental risks, and proponents seem oblivious to the consequences of continuing to feed our nation's oil addiction. The Keystone XL pipeline would run 1,700 miles and cost $7 billion, generating thousands of construction jobs.

As a deadline rapidly approaches that will automatically permit the construction of the southern leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, an increasingly vocal group of landowners, environmentalists and even tea party members are saying that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now ramming the project through without any public input or environmental review. On May 11, the Corps confirmed that pipeline owner TransCanada filed applications to build the project's southern leg, which will move oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, under a process called Nationwide Permit 12, or NWP 12. The permits have already been granted and are under review - but do not require an environmental impact statement.

HOUSTON -- A Texas judge has temporarily stopped oil company TransCanada from building a pipeline designed to carry tar sands oil from Canada through eastern portions of the state to the Gulf Coast. The decision came after Michael Bishop, 64, a retired paramedic and chemist in East Texas, filed a lawsuit arguing that TransCanada lied to him and other landowners, promising that the Keystone XL pipeline would transport crude oil, not tar sands oil. "What they're calling tar sands oil is not oil by anyone's definition," Bishop told The Times, adding that he's worried the pipeline's proposed contents might contaminate his land.

With gas prices becoming a high-octane campaign issue, the Democratic-led Senate beat back a Republican effort to advance the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline project. Thursday's vote to attach the project to a must-pass transportation bill failed 56 to 42, with 11 Democrats joining Republicans to support the measure. Sixty votes were needed for passage. President Obama had called senators to urge a no vote. "We hope that the Congress will ... not waste its time with ineffectual, sham legislation," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.