Ebbie -

Congress passed "a law" demanding that the EPA approve the pipeline within 30 days, but being a clever bunch of ... (is monkeys too complimentary?)... they failed to repeal the law requiring the EPA to conduct full environmental impact reviews before granting a permit. Since it would require a court opinion to determine which law should have precedence, it was left to the Administration to decide which of the conflicting rules to follow, and I believe the Administration only issued an executive order that no approval will be given until the required environmental impact studies are completed with a favorable result (as required by the prior existing law), and gave a "not prior to 2013" as a timeline for completion of the studies. A veto would only have sent the "Congressional Posturing Piece" back to Congress where they could use it for additional lies, blather, propaganda, and posturing.

Since there are virtually zero occupants in the set of [news reporters who actually understand how the Legislative and Executive branches of our government are supposed to work] (on the rare occasions when either actually does some work), it's difficult to pin down exactly what has happened, but the approval of the permit for the pipeline is blocked with respect to the required EPA license, pending a satisfactory impact statement, and additionally requires approval of the State Department since it's an "international operation." Decisions about how laws are implemented and enforced are given to the Executive Branch by the Constitution, and the Administration has properly asserted that authority.

There are a number of different processes that can be used to extract "flowable oil" from the tar sands, but all that I've heard of have significantly more adverse environmental impact than ordinary pumpable wells (and even those make a nasty mess). I haven't seen what specific processes are planned, but those things will be done in Canada and are thus something that only Canada can regulate. While it would be theoretically possible for a treaty applicable to the pipeline to specify that the US can accept only oil produced by "low environmental impact processes" I don't see that as a likely part of the plan. I've also seen little in the news here about how concerned Canada really is about pollution of their space; but it must be assumed that they have some applicable regulations ... (or maybe not?????).

John