With a Whimper Not a Bang

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TransCanada asks US to suspend approval request for Keystone Pipeline.

There’s an interesting side note to this battle. And this is not remotely to understate the work of activists who fought for years to scuttle the project. As things ground on over the last two years, a reality came to the surface: the fight over the pipeline had become deeply enmeshed in the nation’s partisan battles. But historically low oil prices were at the same time undercutting the economic rationale for the entire project. I remember thinking earlier this year that there seemed to be more enthusiasm for the project on the part of US Republicans – largely to score political points – than there was on the part of the people trying to build it. In any case, with a formal Obama administration rejection apparently in the offing, years of activism and the collapse of oil prices appear to have conspired together to kill the Keystone Pipeline.

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