WASHINGTON - President Obama rejected TransCanada Corp.€™s Keystone XL pipeline yesterday, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would stretch from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people," the president said in a statement.

Last week, NACS, along with more than 100 industry organizations including, sent a letter to President Obama urging his support of Keystone XL.

NACS continues to support the efforts of its labor allies, the Consumer Energy Alliance and the American Petroleum Institute, who are instrumental in seeking approval of the Keystone XL project. The project has undergone three years of intensive environment impact analysis and thousands of unemployed Americans have been standing by ready to work. The energy security and economic opportunity provided by projects like Keystone XL, which has been found to present limited environmental risks, should be pursued as a matter of sound national energy policy and NACS will continue to support projects of this type.