With the $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline facing strong headwinds on Capitol Hill and in the Nebraska Statehouse, 26 House members from both parties yesterday rallied to urge a go-ahead for the beleaguered project.

In a letter spearheaded by Energy and Commerce Committee leaders, the lawmakers urged President Obama to approve the Canada-to-U.S. project and warned that further delays in its State Department review would rob the recession-plagued U.S. economy of jobs.

Every day spent prolonging the administration's assessment of Keystone XL beyond Nov. 24, the expiration date of a 90-day comment period on its environmental impacts, "is another day that thousands of Americans remain unemployed while awaiting a job to build the pipeline or refine the product it delivers," the House members wrote.

The letter comes as the 1,700-mile pipeline, which would nearly double U.S. import capacity of Canadian oil-sands crude if given the green light, faces mounting political obstacles on the federal and state levels. As Nebraska legislators continue a special session to examine how to reroute the oil link around the sensitive soil of their state's Sandhills, a State Department spokesman acknowledged yesterday that requiring a new path for the pipeline remains on the table for the administration (E&ENews PM, Nov. 9).

Set against that backdrop, the Energy and Commerce Committee's letter stood as a public defense of State's environmental review of Keystone XL in the face of conflict-of-interest charges from Democrats and green groups opposed to the pipeline (E&E Daily, Oct. 3).

State's pipeline assessment has "already been thoroughly vetted by a wide array of interested parties and government agencies," wrote the House members, including three Energy and Commerce Democrats -- Reps. Mike Ross of Arkansas, Charles Gonzalez of Texas and Jim Matheson of Utah -- as well as committee chief Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and his subpanel lieutenants. "Its preferred alternative, to permit the pipeline, is well supported by ample analysis."

Conservation groups take issue with that view, slamming State's review for giving inadequate consideration to the emissions, environmental justice and ecological consequences of developing greenhouse gas-intensive Canadian oil-sands crude. Republicans, alongside conservative-leaning Democrats and industry groups, counter that the fuel supplies set to ship through the XL line would be extracted regardless of whether the pipeline is built, touting the project as a job creator.

Even the jobs potential of the project is hotly disputed, with proponents and foes alike generating markedly different estimates of how many Americans would actually work on building and operating the pipeline (E&E Daily, Oct. 24).

While speculation persists about State's openness to heeding Nebraskan concerns on the route of XL, one of the Cornhusker State's senior Democrats yesterday pressed his GOP governor to move a pipeline bill no matter what Obama's advisers decide.

"It's a states' rights issue, purely and simply, and what good are states' rights if elected officials refuse to exercise them and let Washington make the decisions for them, directly or through acquiescence?" Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said on a conference call with local reporters.

Click here to read the Energy and Commerce Committee members' letter to the president.