By Tim Carpenter
Topeka Capital Journal
A Kansas congressman denounced the Obama administration's decision Thursday to delay action on a massive pipeline project that would have allowed crude from Canada to pass through Kansas to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a first-term Republican, said postponement by President Barack Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline thwarted employment in the U.S. construction and energy industries and exposed the president's pandering to environmentalists.
"It is wrong for President Obama to erect another politically motivated bureaucratic hurdle to block job creation in America," Huelskamp said. "Instead of catering to his radical environmental donors to keep his job as President, Mr. Obama should help the 25 million Americans looking for work."
The State Department announced Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. must seek alternative routes around the sensitive Sandhills region in Nebraska and the Ogallala aquifer supplying drinking water in eight states. The proposed line would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil a day.
Obama administration officials were to issue a final ruling on the 1,700-mile, $7 billion project before the year of the year, but the latest maneuver will require a supplemental environmental assessment that could take more than a year to complete.
The State Department, which has authority over the review because the pipe crosses the U.S. border, conducted a public hearing in Topeka as well as other cities to gather comment on a project linking Canada and Texas to new pipe recently installed through Kansas.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback endorsed the pipeline project, but Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman called a special session of the Nebraska Legislature to explore possible rerouting of the pipeline. Brownback and Heineman are Republicans.
Environmentalists questioned wisdom of turning to Canadian tar sands oil that could be source of a damaging spill rather than advancing development of cleaner alternative energy.
Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Obama displayed "leadership and courage in putting interests of the American people before those of Big Oil."
"He has taken another significant step in the fight against climate change and in our march toward a clean energy future, which will mean healthier lives for all," she said.
Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, said the Obama administration's striking of the reset button on the environmental review process should give TransCanada reason to reconsider the pipeline project.
"President Obama deserves credit for rejecting a defective environmental impacts analysis that was corrupted by bias, lobbyist influence and conflicts of interest," Pica said.
Labor and business groups argued Keystone XL would generate domestic jobs and serve the national interest by expanding energy production at U.S. refineries and trimming reliance on fragile Middle Eastern sources of crude oil.
Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the project had undergone a long review indicating the current route to be best among 13 options examined.
"This is clearly a political decision and everyone knows it," he said. "Politics has trumped jobs in this decision and we can only wonder if the administration’s delay will cause Canada to turn their pipeline west and ship their energy and American jobs elsewhere."
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