11.03.15

Leading Congressional Keystone Critic Grijalva Calls on Administration to Reject Keystone in Light of Parent Company’s Delay Request

Washington, D.C. – House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a leading critic of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal who published a Feb. 26, 2014, New York Times op-ed urging President Obama to reject it, today hailed the announcement that Keystone’s parent company is now seeking to delay the final federal approval decision. Grijalva said TransCanada should withdraw its application altogether in the face of overwhelming evidence that Canadian tar sands will add to already unsustainable levels of global warming from fossil fuels.

Grijalva wrote last year that the Keystone decision “is about more than one pipeline. It is about establishing once and for all whether we have moved on from the disastrous Bush-Cheney view of environmental policy.” He reiterated that today, urging President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to issue a final ruling that allowing the pipeline to move forward is not in the national interest.

“We’ve had enough evidence for years that Keystone XL isn’t good for taxpayers, isn’t good for the environment and isn’t good for our country, and now it’s time to end this conversation,” Grijalva said. “Rather than kicking the can down the road or letting TransCanada gamble on electing a more pliable future president, the Obama administration can do the right thing once and for all, block Keystone and close the book on this chapter. The Clean Power Plan and sustainable energy development are the way of the future. Keystone isn’t, and everyone knows it.”

Grijalva had pushed for years to block Keystone, sending a letter to President Obama in May 2013 signed by 29 of his colleagues pointing to the pipeline’s climate impacts and urging rejection.

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