The U.S. State Department will formally reject the Keystone XL Pipeline this afternoon. Pipeline operator TransCanada, the company which was applying for the Keystone XL permit, will be allowed to reapply with an alternate route through Nebraska.

The 1700 mile Keystone XL pipeline was designed to run from Canada to the Texas Gulf bringing oil from the tar sands up north to our refineries here. Whether or not it was built was up to the State Department. Environmentalists were not happy because part of the pipeline was scheduled to run through the Nebraska Sandhills. Critics thought it would eventually leak and harm the country's largest aquifer which supplies groundwater to Nebraska and seven other states.

TransCanada maintained the pipeline posed no environmental risk... and said it would bring thousands of jobs to Texas and the other states.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.