President Obama firmly, and finally, closed the door to constructing the Keystone XL Pipeline, a 1,179-mile project designed to pump 800,000 gallons of crude oil per day from Canada’s tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. After seven years of existing only as a troublesome political symbol, wielded by politicians in the 2014 midterm elections, Obama’s rejection comes on the heels of the Labor Department’s October employment figures, showing an economy well on its way to recovery. Advocates for the pipeline often cited the potential job creation a project this scale could have provided, a line of reasoning Obama dismissed in today’s remarks.
The chorus of groans from Republican leadership was led by newly minted Speaker Paul Ryan, who described Obama’s decision as “sickening.”
