(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors) TransCanada (TSE:TRP) the country’s second-biggest pipeline operator rose in today’s trading after the Nebraska Supreme Court approved a plan for the company’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline to cross the state clearing a major obstacle for the $8 billion project.
Shares rose 1.2 percent to C$55.63 at 1:38 p.m. in Toronto expanding gains over the past year to 16 percent.
Nebraska’s highest court today upheld the Republican governor’s approval of Keystone XL’s path through the state leaving the fate of the cross-border line solely in the hands of the Obama administration.
The pipeline has sat in regulatory limbo in the U.S. for six years and President Barack Obama has the authority to approve the pipeline himself since it crosses an international border.
Republicans who now control both houses of Congress have vowed to make approval of the pipeline one of their first pieces of legislation.
“Today’s court decision wipes out President Obama’s last excuse” Republican Senator Lisa Murkowksi said today after the court decision was released. Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is currently working to introduce a bill on the Senate floor that would force Obama to act on Keystone XL.
TransCanada called the Nebraska ruling “great news” for U.S. energy security and jobs.
“It removes what we believe is the stated reason for the delay in the presidential permit decision process and obviously we hope that review process can now pick up where it left off” chief executive officer Russ Girling said on a conference call.
Girling said TransCanada believes that a State Department review of the process could be completed within “a couple of months” and that all of the line’s contracted shippers still support the project despite oil prices that have fallen by half since June.
Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Greg Rickford also welcomed the decision today. “Our position on Keystone remains the same: we believe the project should be approved” he said in a release. “Since 2005 exports of Canadian crude to the United States have increased 59% and are at historic highs. The decision for the Obama administration is between pipelines or less secure means of transporting crude” Rickford said.
A White House official said today that Obama would reject legislation that tries to push the project ahead. "If presented to the president he will veto" spokesman Eric Schultz said in a statement.
Obama has delayed decisions on the pipeline in the past pointing to the need for further environmental reviews and the fact that landowners in Nebraska were taking the legality of Keystone XL’s route in that state to court. Environmentalists oppose Keystone since it could help expand oil sands development.
Separately today the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve Keystone moving toward a showdown with Obama who has said he would veto the measure. The House’s 266-153 passage vote today sends the matter to the Senate where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s confident the new Republican majority has enough votes to pass legislation after years of trying.
If the bill passes with 67 votes in the Senate it becomes law without the approval of Obama.
The bill is expected to get over 60 supporting votes meaning Obama will be forced to either sign or veto it within 10 days of it passing the Senate floor or else it would become law since Congress is sitting.
The pipeline would connect to an existing TransCanada system enabling some 830000 barrels of crude per day mostly from Alberta to more directly reach the lucrative Gulf Coast market by cutting diagonally from the Saskatchewan-Montana border to Steele City Nebraska.
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