The Obama administration has decided not to move forward with the Keystone XL oil pipeline, according to multiple news reports.
The move, which the State Department will reportedly announce Wednesday afternoon, will please environmentalists but anger the business community. It was widely expected after Republicans successfully inserted a provision into the December payroll tax package demanding a decision by the end of February.
At the time, the White House said forcing an expedited decision would almost certainly squash the likelihood that the pipeline will be built this year, arguing that it needed more time to study the environmental impacts and alternate routes for the Canada-to-Texas pipeline.
Republicans dismissed the notion, saying that it has passed the needed stages of approval and the President has the authority to move forward with it. And Speaker John Boehner’s office blasted the decision moments after it was reported.
“President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese,” said Boehner’s spokesman Brendan Buck in a a statement. “The President won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs. This is not the end of this fight.”
Regardless of the project’s ultimate fate — it could potentially still be built after this year — Republicans have every intention of hanging today’s decision around the White House’s neck as a 2012 election issue.
