Latest News - January 2012

The Obama administration rejects TransCanada’s application for a permit to build the Keystone Pipeline: Economic and political implications of the decision and prospects for an alternative route.

Chamber of Commerce Oil Sands Issues VP Matt Koch explains why the Keystone Pipeline is important to our economy and growth.

The nation’s most powerful business groups are dialing up the political pressure on the White House to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

December’s payroll-tax-cut deal gives the administration 60 days to approve or reject TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline to bring oil from Alberta’s tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue plans to highlight the pipeline in his closely watched annual speech Thursday on the state of American business.

The clock is ticking on the Keystone XL pipeline.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday unveiled a clock on the panel’s website that is counting - down to the second - how long President Obama has to make a decision on the proposed Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline.

After what happened last year when BP's oil well blew out and dumped millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the idea of drilling for oil in the frigid Arctic Ocean off northern Alaska sounds risky. Even in the relatively placid and temperate Gulf, it took 86 days to cap BP's damaged well, and by then raw crude had spread for hundreds of miles. Further, the frigid arctic waters aren't as rich in the oil-eating bugs that limited damage in the Gulf. The Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where Royal Dutch Shell wants to drill next summer, are covered with ice two-thirds of the year.

But despite those risks — and the fact that the Shell bid is shaping up as an election-year controversy — other factors say Shell should be allowed to drill. And, in fact, the Obama administration has granted the company a conditional go-ahead.