Shortly after President Obama announced that he would decide the fate of the Keystone XL before the end of his term, TransCanada pipelines submitted a request to suspend their application. TransCanada believes that Obama will not rule in their favor. Now that the Iran crisis is behind him Obama will likely use the remainder of his term to focus on climate change.
Canceling the KXL would make sense for a President who sees combating climate change as a legacy issue. He has already enacted a slate of actions including improved mileage mandates for American vehicles and the Clean Power Plan. It would be very hard to marry climate action with the KXL that would ferry 830,000 barrels a day of some of the dirtiest energy on earth.
The KXL would carry tar sands, they are a major carbon bomb that could seriously undermine efforts to reign in climate change causing emissions. As James Hansen has explained, exploiting the tar sands would mean “game over” for staving off climate change. The case against the pipeline is also buoyed by massive ongoing protests. Nebraska farmers are fighting against the expropriation of their lands to build the pipeline and environmentally concerned people around the world have come out to say no to the KXL.
The President has previously questioned the economic benefits of the pipeline. Now, these benefits are further compounded by low oil prices. TransCanada is hoping that a Republican will win the federal election next year and approve the pipeline. All the Republican presidential candidates have shown unequivocal support for the KXL.
The Obama administration rejected TransCanada’s request for suspension on November 4.
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