New Zealand Celsias

Sometimes you just have to love the way the American political system works. Amazing news today as the Obama Administration  has rejected the application of Canadian firm TransCanada to build the Keystone XL Pipeline on its present route. 

President Obama has  declared that he would not bow to congressional pressure and  that he was rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas.

Obama said that a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension had made it impossible to do an adequate review of the pipeline project proposed by TransCanada.

“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,” the president said in a statement.

This is both a surprise and a massive relief. Labelled a carbon bomb by many the Keystone XL had the potential to become the "tipping point" in terms of carbon emissions.

The White House has not deflected  a political issue until after the election.

The administration will allow TransCanada to reapply for a permit after it develops an alternate route around the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills. The  decision makes  it clear that TransCanada can reapply, stating, “The determination does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for subsequent projects.” Stephen Harper

Industry officials and analysts said they expect TransCanada to submit a new route proposal for the Nebraska leg of the pipeline within two weeks. TransCanada has made no comment .

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not amused and said “The president explained that the decision was not a decision on the merits of the project and that it was without prejudice, meaning that TransCanada is free to reapply,” said the statement. “Prime Minister Harper expressed his profound disappointment with the news. He indicated to President Obama that he hoped that this project would continue given the significant contribution it would make to jobs and economic growth both in Canada and the United States of America.” The statement also says that Harper “reiterated to the president that Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports.”

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said to Canadian TV  “Our focus is, as you know, on diversifying our markets. We currently have one customer for our energy exports. That customer has said that it doesn’t want to expand at the moment. So it certainly intensifies the broad strategic objective of the government to diversify to Asia.” Presumably that means looking at selling more of their oil to Asia ,as the Canadian Government shows no inkling that it would like to do anything about climate change at all.