WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) – Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday declined again to take a position on the Keystone XL pipeline, telling an audience in Canada that she would not express her views because of an ongoing review by the State Department.
“We have differences and you won’t get me to talk about Keystone because I have steadily made clear that I’m not going to express an opinion,” said Clinton, a potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate. “It is in our process and that’s where it belongs.”
Clinton was asked about U.S.-Canadian relations during a wide-ranging question-and-answer session in Winnipeg as Congress considers approving construction of the contentious, Canada-backed project. Making her first public remarks in a month, Clinton also touched upon the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and the debate in Congress over Iran.
Her views on Keystone have been closely watched in Canada. She has said it would be inappropriate for her to comment on whether the pipeline project should move ahead, given her past role as Obama’s top diplomat and the State Department’s ongoing assessment. Clinton was speaking later in the day at a similar event in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Obama has vowed to veto the congressional legislation as long as the State Department is still conducting a formal review of the project.