The proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline is unlikely to increase the pace of Canadian oil sands development, a U.S. State Department study said on Friday, raising pressure on President Barack Obama to approve a project environmentalists see as a major climate change problem.

The massive 11-volume environmental impact study released on Friday did not recommend whether President Barack Obama should grant or deny an application by TransCanadaCorp to build the $5.4 billion line, which would transport crude from Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. refineries.

But a State Department official who briefed reporters ahead of the report’s release said that blocking Keystone – or any pipeline – would do little to slow the expansion of Canada’s vast oil patch, maintaining the central finding of the State Department’s preliminary study issued last year.

The report’s publication opened a new and potentially final stage of an approval process that has dragged for more than five years, taking on enormous symbolic political significance, potentially helping define Obama’s legacy.

With another three-month review process ahead and no firm deadline for a decision on the 1,179-mile line, the issue threatens to drag into the 2014 congressional elections in November. Obama is under pressure from several vulnerable Democratic senators who favor the pipeline and face re-election at a time when Democrats are scrambling to hang on to control of the U.S. Senate.

…..more HERE