After seven long years of review, the White House plans to reject the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL pipeline, according to The New York Times.
Envrionmental groups across the United States, including 350.org, have begun celebrating the news as a victory for climate activists. Sojourners has long spoken out against the construction of the Keystone pipeline and celebrates this news as a win for all those advocating for the protection of creation.
The New York Times reports:
President Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change.
A major United Nations summit meeting on climate change will be held in Paris in December, where Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline would be largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change.
The once-obscure Keystone project has become a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project would have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.
Obama is scheduled to deliver the announcement at 11:45 a.m. E.T. at the White House.
Read more at The New York Times.
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