ND Senator continuing push for Keystone XL
By U.S. Senator John Hoeven | January 22, 2014
"The proposed Keystone XL pipeline route. IMAGE: TRANSCANADA"
IMAGE: TRANSCANADA
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven has met with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer to continue pressing for presidential approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Canadian leaders were in Washington to build relations with U.S. leaders and to press for support of the job-creating pipeline project in light of the State Department’s forthcoming release of a final environmental impact statement (EIS).
“Canada is one of our greatest friends and allies,” said Hoeven. “Working together, we can build a brighter energy future for both our nations, but we need to act. We need the President to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. We’re going on six years now that the American and Canadian people have been waiting for an answer on whether the U.S. government will allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built. The time for review is over. It is well past time for a ‘yes’ on this important project.”
Hoeven met with U.S. State Department officials last month to press for a decision on the pipeline project and for an update on the final EIS. The senator said he expects the State Department to release a final EIS on the project in the coming weeks.
The $7 billion, 1,700-mile, high-tech Keystone XL pipeline will transport 830,000 barrels a day of oil—including 100,000 barrels of light sweet Bakken crude from North Dakota—to U.S. refineries. The pipeline will take 500 trucks a day off western North Dakota roads, improving public safety and reducing wear and tear on the state’s infrastructure. Additionally, the pipeline is expected to create 42,000 jobs in the construction phase.
Hoeven has been working to support the project both as governor of North Dakota and now as a U.S. Senator. He has led the Senate effort to approve the Keystone XL pipeline with two majority votes in the Senate and several bipartisan letters to the president.
In 2011, the senator authored and Congress passed legislation requiring the President to issue a decision on the project within 60 days. In response, the President cited environmental concerns in Nebraska in delaying the project. In 2012, Senator Hoeven sponsored legislation that would allow Congress to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline project. Last fall, Hoeven and a bipartisan group of senators authored a bipartisan concurrent resolution declaring the Keystone XL pipeline project in the national interest and calling on President Obama to approve it. The resolution notes that every study conducted by the State Department, most recently the project’s draft Environmental Impact Statement issued in May 2013, has found no significant impacts to the environment and that greenhouse gas emissions would be minimal.
thebakken.com |
