'There will be litigation': Keystone XL opponents

Bob Allpress describes himself as a “redneck Republican.” Standing on the pasture behind his Nebraska home, the burly former Marine Corps sergeant with a Fu Manchu moustache explains what made him an environmental activist. The Keystone XL pipeline, which TransCanada Corp. wants to build to bring Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico, would cut across the 900 acres near Naper, Nebraska, that Allpress’s grandfather acquired by homestead in 1886. He is vowing to fight that prospect.

After more than four years of exhaustive review of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the best the U.S. State Department could do in its long-awaited draft supplemental environmental impact statement, released late Friday, was to take the high road and open the door to more public debate. As inconclusive as it was, it was the reaction that told the story.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is unlikely to make a decision on the Canada-to-Nebraska Keystone XL pipeline until late this year as it painstakingly weighs the project’s impact on the environment and on energy security, a U.S. official and analysts said on Friday.

Some lawmakers who oppose the pipeline say it appears likely Obama will sign off, triggering their calls to mitigate environmental and political fallout President Barack Obama is being pressed by opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline to tie any approval to measures that would curb climate change, reflecting mounting pressure on the administration to mitigate the project’s impact if it goes forward.

The U.S. environment regulator on Monday said the State Department must take a harder look at climate and other impacts of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil sands pipeline before the Obama administration issues a final decision on the project. The Environmental Protection Agency rated the State Department’s 2,000-page March 1 draft review of the TransCanada Corp pipeline project as “insufficient,” in a letter to department officials as a public comment period ended on Monday.

If you’re actually concerned about the environment, for long-haul movement of oil, you very much want to see that moving by pipeline A TransCanada Corp. executive says opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline should consider one consequence of delays in building the oil pipeline — an increase in dirtier and more dangerous rail transport.

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists and industry groups ramped up efforts on Wednesday to try to sway the White House’s decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, a day after U.S. President Barack Obama said he will take action to curb climate-warming emissions. A small group of activists and celebrities staged a protest in front of the White House to put pressure on Obama to reject the proposed crude oil pipeline. The action came ahead of a rally planned for Sunday on Washington’s National Mall, which organizers have dubbed “the largest climate rally in history.”

A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Thursday would give Congress the power to approve TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline project to link Canada’s oil sands with refineries and ports in Texas. The measure, unveiled by John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, and Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, would take approval of the more than 800,000-barrels-per-day pipeline out of the hands of the Obama administration.