Company asks U.S. to delay Keystone pipeline review

SEATTLE — The company that hopes to build the Keystone XL pipeline to carry crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast asked the Obama administration Monday to delay its review of the proposal — a striking turn that adds further uncertainty to a project that has triggered bitter debate since it was proposed seven years ago.

The company, TransCanada, made its request in a three-paragraph letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, citing legal challenges that have prompted the company to change tactics.

“TransCanada believes that it would be appropriate at this time for the State Department to pause in its review of the presidential permit application for Keystone XL,” the company wrote.

A State Department official said the agency was reviewing the request.

The request could make it more likely that the Obama administration, which has mulled over the proposal throughout the president’s two terms and appeared increasingly inclined to reject the pipeline, will leave the matter to whoever is elected in 2016.

It also reflects a remarkable turnabout by TransCanada, which has spent years complaining of delays in the process only now to request one itself.

Spokesman Mark Cooper said TransCanada was not withdrawing its application. Instead, he said, “we are asking the State Department to suspend a decision.”

Last month, after meeting stiff resistance from landowners in Nebraska, TransCanada decided to withdraw its plans to use a special state law that would allow the company to use eminent domain to seize land for its preferred pipeline route. The company instead applied for a permit through the Nebraska Public Service Commission, a process that could take a year.

The Keystone XL pipeline would carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, across the U.S. border south to Gulf Coast refineries.