Obama rejects Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline

WASHINGTON -- In a politically explosive decision, President Barack Obama rejected plans for a massive oil pipeline through the heart of the United States Wednesday, ruling there was not enough time for a fair review before a looming deadline forced on him by Republicans.

His move did not kill the project, but could again delay a tough choice for him until after November's elections.

Right away, the implications rippled across the political spectrum, stirred up the presidential campaign and even hardened feelings with Canada. For a U.S. electorate eager for work, the pipeline has become the very symbol of job creation for Republicans, but Obama says the environment and public safety must still be weighed, too.

The TransCanada Corp. plan would carry tar sands oil from western Canada through a 1,700-mile pipeline to Texas.

Obama was already on record as saying no, for now, until his government could review an alternate route avoiding environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska, a route still unproposed, as the White House emphasizes. But he had to take a stand again by Feb. 21 as part of an unrelated tax deal cut with Republicans.

This time, the project would go forward unless Obama declared it not in the national interest. He did just that. "This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people," he wrote in a statement.

Republicans responded unsparingly. "President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese. There's really just no other way to put it. The president is selling out American jobs for politics," House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said.