President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline project Friday after seven years of consideration, saying the pipeline “would not serve the national interests.”
Obama made the announcement at the White House along with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, whose department reviewed the proposal from TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline through Nebraska.
TransCanada this week asked the State Department to delay making its decision, largely seen as an attempt by the company to stall until a new president is in office. But the State Department said it would proceed, and Kerry on Friday recommended against the project.
Obama agreed, saying that Keystone wouldn’t add jobs or lower gas prices and had become “a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel used by both parties rather than a serious policy matter.”