There will be no decision made on the controversial Keystone oil pipeline before December, the White House said Wednesday.
"There is this ongoing review at the State Department. And at this point, I wouldn’t commit to a decision being announced prior to the beginning of December," White House spokesperson Josh Earnest said.
On Feb. 24, U.S. President Barack Obama vetoed the controversial pipeline to carry crude oil from Canadian tar sands to refineries in the U.S.' Gulf coast due to environmental concerns, while it is currently being reviewed by the U.S. State Department.
On July 8, the U.S. House of Representatives' Oversight and Government Reform Committee issued a subpoena to the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to provide all reports, recommendations, letters and comments received by the State Department on the permit of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
"The Department has been uncooperative in the Committee’s efforts to conduct oversight of the Keystone XL permitting process and has shown an unwillingness to recognize the Committee’s legitimate interest in obtaining information," the committee's chairman and the U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz said in a statement.
The U.S. Congress had approved the construction of the oil pipeline on Feb. 11, while the U.S. Senate, under its new Republican majority, had passed a bill to authorize the project on Jan. 29. However the vote fell five votes shy of clearing a presidential veto.
To carry heavy crude oil from Alberta's tar sands through Nebraska and Oklahoma to reach the U.S. refineries on the Gulf coast, the northern extension of the pipeline, Keystone XL, would have brought the total capacity of the 2,150 mile-long (3,460 kilometers) pipeline to more than one million barrels a day, with the total investment reaching $12.2 billion, according to its operator TransCanada.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr