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plan was worked out to avoid routing it through Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sandhills region.
• TransCanada, the company applying to build it, revised the route, but that caused the lengthy environmental review process to start over. In the meantime, the company split the project into two parts, starting construction in August on a southern segment between Oklahoma and Texas even as it waits for approval for the northern segment that crosses the Canadian border.
• Although the lower leg didn't require Obama's sign-off, he gave it his blessing in March anyway, irking environmental activists who see the pipeline as a slap to efforts to reduce oil consumption and fend off climate change.
• "At a time when we are desperately trying to bend the emissions curve downwards, it is wrong to open up a new source of energy that is more carbon intensive and makes the problem worse," wrote former Vice President Al Gore, now a climate activist, in an email.
• Still, in an otherwise highly polarized political climate, access to affordable energy has become a rare issue with bipartisan appeal.
• "It's just a no-brainer," Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told The Associated Press. "Canada is going to export this oil. It's either going to come to the U.S. or it's going to go to Russia or China. Even Democrats that aren't really excited about oil and gas development generally can figure that out."
• Many Democrats from states whose economies depend on oil support the pipeline. So do some trade unions, whose workers stand to gain thousands of new construction jobs. While environmentalists make up an important part of their base, Democratic lawmakers are under intense pressure to create jobs and reduce American reliance on Mideast oil.
• There's less variation among Republicans, who generally support the project.
• But in Texas, a deep red state that normally embraces the oil industry, the project has drawn intense opposition from landowners who argue their property along the pipeline's route is being unfairly condemned. Their complaints, along with those from Texans who oppose an influx of foreign oil from Canadian tar sands, have fostered an unlikely alliance with environmentalists, who have taken to chaining themselves to machinery and trucks in an attempt to stall construction.
• The messy politics may demonstrate why Obama punted the decision until after the election. Now both sides are applying pressure with renewed vigor.
• A group of Keystone XL opponents, organized by climate activist Bill McKibben, marched on the White House in November, hoping to call attention to an issue that got barely a mention during the presidential campaign. Days earlier, nine Democ

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