Hearing on pipeline's future

WASHINGTON — The future of the Keystone XL pipeline could become a little clearer Wednesday when key officials testify on Capitol Hill about the controversial project and pending legislation aimed at forcing its approval.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee had hoped Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would testify, but she was not included on the list of three witnesses the panel released Monday.

Instead, the committee will hear from Mike Linder, director of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality; Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant U.S. secretary of state; and Jeffrey Wright, director of the office of energy projects for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The hearing will examine the decision-making process that led to last week's formal rejection of the pipeline, the schedule for reviewing a new permit application by TransCanada and the merits of Nebraska's environmental review of a new pipeline route compared with additional reviews by the State Department.

The State Department's original plan was to make a call on the pipeline by the end of 2011, but then in November it announced that it was delaying a decision until 2013 in order to review alternative routes through Nebraska that would avoid the state's environmentally sensitive Sand Hills.

Nebraska's Department of Environmental Quality has submitted a proposed “memorandum of understanding” to the State Department that lays out the roles of state and federal officials in that review process but had not received a response by the time the administration formally rejected the pipeline.

The State Department said last week that it was not possible to complete the necessary reviews of the new Nebraska route before a Feb. 21 deadline that Republicans had folded into the payroll tax cut extension.

Republicans say the State Department has all the information it needs and are looking for ways to force approval of the project.

One proposal the committee will examine Wednesday, introduced by Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., would put the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in charge of the decision.

The legislation would essentially force that agency to sign off on the project within 30 days, while requiring modifications to the route approved by Nebraska officials.

Terry is a member of the committee and one of the pipeline's chief proponents on Capitol Hill.

Activists fighting the pipeline have scheduled a protest Tuesday on Capitol Hill with about 500 people dressed as referees “blowing the whistle on fossil fuel funded corruption in Congress,” according to organizers.

The activists will be throwing penalty flags and calling out individual lawmakers for the money they have received from oil and gas companies. They also plan on marching to the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry lobbying group.

Contact the writer: 202-630-4823, joe.morton@owh.com

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