In February, a Nebraska state judge ruled that the state law empowering Gov. Dave Heineman to approve the routing of the Keystone XL pipeline through the state was unconstitutional. Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie Stacy’s ruling — which states that the state Legislature does not have the right to take away from the Nebraska Public Service Commission its constitutionally-enshrined prerogative of planning and authorizing utility facilities and pipelines — effectively blocked the long-delayed proposed portion of the Keystone pipeline system from Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Neb.
The fate of the Keystone pipeline expansion in Nebraska is now being determined by the Nebraska Supreme Court, which is hearing the appeal of Stacy’s ruling. Should Stacy’s ruling be upheld, TransCanada, the builder of the Keystone XL pipeline, will need to apply to the Nebraska Public Service Commission for approval to build the 200-mile tract of the pipeline that would cross the state — a process that can take at least seven months by law.
In light of these developments, the White House has announced that the U.S. State Department’s review of the pipeline will be indefinitely extended. As the pipeline crosses the American-Canadian border, State Department approval is needed for construction to begin.
“We are moving ahead very diligently with all the other aspects that are necessary for the national interest determination,” a senior State Department official told reporters on a conference call.
The 90-day review would have ended in mid-May, then the White House would be free to make a decision. The pipeline proposal has been stalled for five years as various reviews and investigations have been carried out.
“We felt that given that we’re a few weeks off from early May that we’d be in the best position to ask agencies to essentially do what they’ve been raising with us in our consultations, which is wait until they have an adequate foundation to make their judgments about the project,” continued the senior State Department official.
It hasn’t escaped notice, however, that this is the second time the White House has pushed back its decision on Keystone XL ahead of an election. In 2011, the White House announced a study to determine routes around the ecologically-fragile Ogallala Reservoir, which provides drinking water for much of the Great Plains. This postponed a ruling until at least 2013 and avoided having the president defend the decision before the 2012 presidential elections.
With the Republicans likely to gain seats in this midterm election, the importance of the White House not making a decision that could possibly embolden the Republican base and alienate Democrats cannot be understated. By not making a decision until after the midterms, the president removes the second major campaign argument — after the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act — from the national Republican platform.
Criticism has also been hurled at the State Department’s decision to release the information on a Friday afternoon ahead of a holiday weekend — a move some have interpreted as an attempt to limit media attention on the issue.
“It is crystal clear that the Obama administration is simply not serious about American energy and American jobs,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement. “Here’s the single greatest shovel-ready project in America — one that could create thousands of jobs right away — but the President simply isn’t interested. Apparently radical activists carry more weight than Americans desperate to get back on the job.”
Environmentalists generally approve of the administration’s delay, saying the Keystone XL pipeline expansion will encourage more bitumen extraction and processing, increasing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. The State Department has rejected this argument, stating that the Canadians would mine the bitumen anyway and ship it via another method without the pipeline.