WASHINGTON — The State Department said it won’t grant TransCanada Corp.’s request to delay a permit review for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, putting the project on a likely path to rejection.
The State Department sent a letter Wednesday to the company, rejecting its bid to delay consideration of the controversial pipeline that would carry crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the Gulf Coast, a department spokesman said.
“We have communicated to them our intention to continue the review,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby. “We’re not required to pause it based on an applicant’s request. There’s no legal basis to do that.”
Kirby said a lot of interagency work has gone into the review.
The decision to move forward with the State Department review puts the project in jeopardy. The Obama administration is widely expected to reject the proposed pipeline in the coming weeks or months, bringing to a close the years-long drama on its fate.
TransCanada on Monday asked the State Department to suspend its cross-border permit application — a move that essentially would have punted the decision on the pipeline to beyond the 2016 elections. The company said in a letter it wanted to first go through a state review process in Nebraska. Its actions, if accepted, could have avoided a rejection of the pipeline from the Obama administration.
