Hopefully by now you have heard of the Keystone XL pipeline project, an expansion of an existing system to allow trans-national companies pump crude oil extracted from Canadian oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico, where it can be sold on the global market.

It is awaiting final approval from President Obama.

Well, President Obama got a nice little hug over the weekend from 12,000 of his closest friends, reminding him that he once vowed to "end the tyranny of oil."

Check out some of the pictures at tarsandsaction.org

The recent rise in protests have certainly gotten the President's attention, as he recently announced that he will personally make the decision about the pipeline.

This just in last week:

President Obama has delayed making a decision on the pipeline until 2013. He sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project. The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess.

Environmentalists protesting the pipeline had previously warned Obama that approval of the project would sap their appetite for working on his behalf in 2012. Do you think that Obama's decision to delay will be enough to retain the support of environmentalists in the upcoming election?

Some more updates...

Canada has also postponed the review of the proposed pipeline to its west coast until late 2013. If you remember, a big argument by the proponents of the keystone xl pipeline was that if it's not built in the us, then it will just be shipped to canada. Well, this latest news certainly throws a wrench in that logic...

http://desmogblog.com/breaking-northern-gateway-pipelin
e-decision-delayed-until-late-2013

Here's a real great one- former engineer who was in charge of certifying the safety of the Keystone pipeline for TransCanada has just written an op-ed detailing his opposition to the new pipeline based on the horrific safety record he witnessed and utter disregard for anything interfering with dollars.

http://journalstar.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnist
s/mike-klink-keystone-xl-pipeline-not-safe/article_4b71
3d36-42fc-5065-a370-f7b371cb1ece.html

Denied.

This just in - The US state department has formally recommended the rejection of the controversial crude oil pipeline!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16621398

I recently came across a report detailing the media coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline issue.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201201260005

One striking finding was that the media disproportionately slanted the debate in favor of those advocating for the pipeline. A whopping 79% of those hosted or quoted by the broadcast media about Keystone XL supported the pipeline, while only 7% opposed the pipeline.

Researchers also found that the media not only repeated the inflated (and widely discredited) industry jobs numbers, they also downplayed environmental concerns about the pipeline.

Here's to hoping that the coverage of the GOPs new push to pressure Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) into including Keystone language in must-pass payroll tax legislation will be less slanted.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/207227-gop-wan
ts-sen-baucus-to-go-rogue-on-keystone