Alberta’s premier said the US should speed up a decision after the Canadian pipeline developer agreed to shift the route of its planned Alberta-to-Texas oil pipeline out of an environmentally sensitive area of Nebraska.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford said there appears now to be no reason to delay the Keystone XL pipeline.
“If that was the issue that was of concern, does this now give us the opportunity to expedite the process? And I hope the answer is yes,” she said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
Redford is leader of the Canadian province that has the world’s third-largest reserves of oil and the proposed pipeline would carry oil-sands oil from Alberta to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.
Last week, the US government delayed a decision on a federal permit for the project until it studies new potential routes that avoid Nebraska’s Sandhills area and the Ogallala aquifer.
TransCanada said on Monday night it would agree to the new route, a move the company previously claimed wasn’t possible, as part of an effort to push through the proposed US$7 billion project.
However, the final federal decision on the pipeline will still likely take 12 to 18 months, a US Department of State official familiar with the process said on Monday night. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because no final decision has been made.
Redford met with US Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones and US House Speaker John Boehner in Washington on Monday and had talks with US lawmakers on Tuesday. She said she got the sense from them that there is now no reason not to expedite the decision.
Boehner released a statement on Monday assailing the White House for the Keystone XL decision, accusing US President Barack Obama of delaying it in order to bolster his chances of re-election next year. He said more than 20,000 new US jobs have been sacrificed in the name of political expediency.
The heavily contested project has became a political trap for Obama, who risks angering environmental supporters — and losing re-election contributions from some liberal donors — if he approves it.
Redford said she remains very optimistic the pipeline will be approved.
Debate over the pipeline has drawn international attention focused largely on Nebraska, because the pipeline would cross the Sandhills — an expanse of grass-strewn, loose-soil hills — and part of the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to Nebraska and parts of seven other states.
Environmentalists and some Nebraska landowners fear the pipeline would disrupt the region’s loose soil for decades, harm wildlife and contaminate the aquifer. Opponents also say it would bring “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of