President Barack Obama told an Omaha news program on Tuesday that he will make the final decision whether to permit construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, and whether to require that it be routed away from the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies 2 million people in the plains states with drinking water.
“We don’t want, for example, aquifers” to be harmed, Obama said, and that, “folks in Nebraska obviously would be directly impacted, and so we want to make sure we’re taking the long view on these issues.”
The fight over the pipeline has blurred traditional political lines and poses problems for the President as he heads into the 2012 reelection campaign. In Nebraska, GOP Governor Dave Heineman convened a special session of the state’s unicameral legislature to consider imposing its own restrictions on the route of the pipeline. The state’s GOP Senator, Mike Johanns, opposes the pipeline. Blocking the proposed route at the state level would likely be challenged on constitutional grounds by pipeline proponents or perhaps the federal government since the pipeline crosses not just state lines but the border with Canada.
Obama will face renewed protests from environmentalist this Sunday at the White House. At the same time, Obama faces election-year pressure to produce jobs and North American energy. The Keystone XL pipeline could employ tens of thousands of people, and provide a new source of crude oil for U.S. refineries that would otherwise likely be exported to China.
The U.S. relies on crude oil pipelines nationwide to move 71% of its oil and petroleum products.