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The White House is pushing back against a Rolling Stone magazine story that cites two "high-level" Obama administration sources saying President Obama intends to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. "Nobody who knows POTUS' thinking on Keystone is talking and nobody who is talking knows," White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said on Twitter Wednesday evening. In the Rolling Stone story published online Wednesday, veteran climate writer Jeff Goodell writes that the unnamed administration sources told him Obama has "all but decided to deny the permit for the pipeline," although the piece notes "no final decision has been made." Later, the story...

Since word broke on Thursday night that Chelsea Clinton will be having a baby, ABC has fixated over the news, devoting 12 minutes and 47 seconds of coverage to the arrival of America's new "royal" child. Yet, the same network totally ignored the latest delay of the Kyestone XL pipeline by the Obama administration (and the political ramifications that go with it). On Friday morning, ABC reporter Bianna Golodryga hyped, "Move over, Prince George, though. This morning, Americans have their own royal, or, rather, presidential baby, to look forward to." On Sunday, This Week avoided Keystone, yet the ABC program...

According to experts cited by The New York Times, President Barack Obama's eventual decision on the Keystone XL pipeline -- last week, the administration once again postponed a decision -- "will have a marginal impact on global warming emissions." The global economy releases lots of greenhouse gas -- 32.6 billion metric tons of carbon in 2011. The Keystone XL pipeline would add 18.7 million metric tons. In the global greenhouse gas picture, it won't make a dent. To the working men and women of America, however, the project represents "a lifeline to good jobs and energy security," according to Terry...

IF FOOT-DRAGGING were a competitive sport, President Obama and his administration would be world champions for their performance in delaying the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Last Friday afternoon, the time when officials make announcements they hope no one will notice, the State Department declared that it is putting off a decision on Keystone XL indefinitely — or at least, it seems, well past November’s midterm elections. This time, the excuse is litigation in Nebraska over the proposed route, because that might lead to a change in the project that various federal agencies will want to consider. The State...

On Good Friday, President Obama made a bad call. The State Department announced that it would delay its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the Nebraska Supreme Court rules in a case involving the route. The administration insists the decision to punt has nothing to do with politics. Pretty much everyone else thinks otherwise. Obama, who is rarely reluctant to act unilaterally when it benefits him politically, and who regularly brags about his red-tape cutting, is paralyzed by perhaps the only big shovel-ready jobs project he's been presented with. He welcomes the Keystone red tape because he's trapped...

It’s beginning to look like President Obama has developed a chronic aversion to anything that might be mistaken for “leadership” in his second term. The Keystone XL pipeline was, again, delayed until after the 2014 elections. Of course, then again, maybe this wasn’t political. Maybe the White House just likes watching oil company stocks take a hit every once in a while. TransCanada stock took a beating after it was announced that Obama would once again push the no-brainer decision on the Keystone pipeline until after the 2014 elections. And, while it literally figuratively kills me to write the following...

Whenever businesses and bureaucrats don’t have the guts to stand behind a decision they’ve made, they release the news late on a Friday. In the case of the Obama administration’s move to delay indefinitely a decision to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline, it speaks volumes that the announcement was made not just on any Friday, but on the convergence of Good Friday and Passover. Got to be just coincidence, right? The cover story is that another delay in the five-year Keystone saga couldn’t be avoided because of unresolved legal issues over land seizures in Nebraska. Mmm-hmmm. In what...

A human oil spill spread across Dwinelle Plaza on Monday — a silent demonstration against fracking that is the first in a series of events to kick-start Earth Week 2014. The day after the four-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, about 20 students, clad entirely in black, circled and sprawled around a miniature wooden oil rig covered with protest signs. Protesters wanted to illustrate the environmental effects of fracking by using human bodies as symbols of the devastation. “An oil spill is a very visible and recognizable example of the corruption and destruction wrought by the fossil fuel industry,”...

Barack Obama waited nine months before replacing the last U.S. ambassador to Canada. The post was empty, and Obama just didn’t care. He doesn’t much like Stephen Harper – compare Obama’s icy body language towards Harper, to Obama’s deep bow when he met the Saudi king, or his high fives with the Hugo Chavez, the late ruler of Venezuela. Don’t feel singled out. That’s how Obama treats many of America’s traditional allies. He spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone. The White House's bust of Winston Churchill was returned to the United Kingdom when Obama became president. Get used to...

The former hedge fund of one of the Democratic Party’s most important donors was involved in a scheme to defraud foreign investors out of tens of millions of dollars, according to documents filed in a Texas court. Farallon Capital Partners L.P., a fund run by Farallon Capital Management, the multibillion-dollar hedge fund founded by Democratic donor Tom Steyer, became a limited partner in a project to build a large shopping mall near Seattle, Wash., in the mid-1990s after it guaranteed a line of credit for the project.

On Friday, the day to bury unpopular news, the Obama administration announced the extension of its Keystone XL review. A final decision is unlikely before the November midterms. The administration claims it needs this delay to resolve legal complexities. But let’s be clear: This is the submission of governance to partisanship. And it comes from the president who proclaims himself the maestro of infrastructure investment. It’s impossible to overstate the absurdity of this situation. After all, the State Department recently found that Keystone XL would have no significant impact on the environment — a conclusion upheld by the department’s inspector...

The president and CEO of TransCanada had some harsh words Monday after another process delay was announced by the U.S. Department of State for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. “We are extremely disappointed and frustrated with yet another delay,” Russ Girling said in a statement released Monday. “American men and women will miss out on another construction season where they could have worked to build Keystone XL and provided for their families. “We feel for them.” The Department of State (DOS) announced last week it will seek input from eight federal agencies to determine whether the project meets National Interest...

The Obama administration on Friday said it was giving eight federal agencies more time to weigh in on the Keystone XL pipeline, a move almost certain to delay a final decision on the controversial project until after the Nov. 4 midterm elections. That timeline spares President Barack Obama from making a politically difficult decision that would either anger environmentalists or jeopardize some Senate Democrats seeking reelection in red states. But Friday’s move alienated stakeholders on all sides of the issue, including oil industry allies who accused the White House of playing politics and environmentalists who want Obama to swiftly reject...

There's a reason why overwhelming evidence hasn't spurred public action against global warming. In the run-up to Earth Day this year, two major reports were released by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the largest such body in the world. On March 31, Working Group II released its report, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, and on April 13, Working Group III released its report, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Both reports cited substantially more evidence of substantially more global warming and related impacts than past reports have, and they did so more lucidly than in...

...The announcement made it clear that Canadian pipeline backers will not get the answer they wanted in time for the summer construction season, pushing completion of the project until 2015 — at best. The State Department said it needs more time to prepare its recommendation to the president because the pipeline route is mired in uncertainty. A legal dispute is underway in Nebraska over the route and it is unlikely to be resolved before next year.... Speculation had been rampant about whether the Obama administration might try to punt the politically sensitive decision until after this year’s midterms. That’s because...

Oil and gas production has stalled on federal lands for the third year in a row under the Obama administration, despite booming energy production on private and state lands, according to a new government report. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) says that the share of oil and gas production coming from federal lands have plummeted from 2009 to 2013. Oil production on federal lands fell by 11 percent over this time period and natural gas production fell by 28 percent. Federal onshore oil production fell for the third year in a row, while offshore oil production increased slightly — just...

You really have to admire the chutzpah. In her 2012 campaign, Senator Heidi Heitkamp worked long and hard to brand herself not as a liberal Democrat, but as an “independent” who would “stand up” to President Barack Obama. Such rhetoric was necessary in a state where Obama lost by more than 20 points, and Heitkamp herself won by just a few thousand votes. It’s hard to imagine Heitkamp being in the US Senate now had she not campaigned so hard against Obama. But she did, and she won, and then spent her first year in the US Senate voting with...

The Obama administration once again has punted on a final decision for the Keystone XL pipeline, announcing ahead of the holiday weekend that it is extending a key review period indefinitely -- a move that could push off a determination until after the midterm elections. Republicans, as well as red-state Democrats who want the pipeline approved, slammed the administration for the delay. "It's absolutely ridiculous that this well over five year long process is continuing for an undetermined amount of time," Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.H., said in a statement.

The Obama administration has extended a key review period for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Fox News has learned, potentially pushing off a decision until after the midterm elections.

The man who oversaw an energy crisis has come out strongly against the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter with other Nobel laureates, former President Jimmy Carter urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the pipeline, claiming that allowing the project to move forward would worsen climate change.