WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama should reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline before heading to Paris next month to finalize a global climate agreement, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said Wednesday.
The Vermont independent senator said rejecting the pipeline now would show “bold leadership” in the fight to slow climate change, which Sanders called “a major, major, major planetary crisis.”
The pipeline’s developer, Calgary-based TransCanada, has asked U.S. officials to delay consideration of the Alberta-to-Texas pipeline, potentially putting off a decision until the next U.S. president takes office in 2017.
Sanders, who is challenging former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Obama should ignore TransCanada’s request and act decisively to reject the long-delayed pipeline, a flashpoint in the global debate over climate change.
The 1,179-mile pipeline would run from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from tar sands in western Canada to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast.