President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies. …NYT

Did Obama do this because it’s the right thing to do, or because it helps the pipeline developers?

The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally. While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands. …NYT

Or did Obama just follow what had emerged in Canada three/four days ago?

Keystone XL is dead! Long live Energy East!

Like a game of pipeline whack-a-mole, a bid by TransCanada Corp., to suspend its controversial, north-south Keystone XL pipeline proposal has elevated the west-east Energy East pipeline plan to the top of Canada’s political agenda.

“With Keystone now delayed, even more important we approve Energy East,” Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall posted on his Twitter account Tuesday while the U.S. State Department was still chewing over TransCanada’s postponement bid.

“There’s no doubt it puts a whole lot more attention now on Energy East,” Donald Arsenault, New Brunswick’s energy minister, told The Canadian Press in an interview.

TransCanada’s proposed 4,600-kilometre Energy East pipeline is designed to move 1.1-million barrels of crude oil a day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada. …TheProvince

More background here and here.

Cross posted from Prairie Weather

PHOTO: by Flappiefh (Own work from Keystone-pipeline-route.png) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons