Republicans slammed the Obama administration's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, with presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio vowing to approve the $8 billion project should he win the White House next year.
The Florida senator said on Twitter:
Rival Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, also blasted the president's decision on Twitter:
So did front-runner GOP Donald Trump:
House Speaker Paul Ryan called President Barack Obama's decision "sickening."
"By rejecting this pipeline, the president is rejecting tens of thousands of good-paying jobs," the Wisconsin congressman said. "He is rejecting our largest trading partner and energy supplier.
"He is rejecting the will of the American people and a bipartisan majority of the Congress.
"If the president wants to spend the rest of his time in office catering to special interests, that’s his choice," Ryan added. "But it's just wrong."
Obama's rejection capped a seven-year saga for the 1,179-mile pipeline and a huge victory for the environmentalists who have lobbied against it for years.
In a clear rebuff to Republicans in February,
Obama vetoed the pipeline project after it had been overwhelmingly approved by Congress.
Lawmakers from both parties had argued that the pipeline would create more than 100,000 jobs and increase the nation's energy security.
TransCanada Corp. proposed the project in 2008. It would have pumped 830,000 barrels a day from the oil sands in Alberta through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry the crude to refineries in Texas.
On Monday, the Calgary-based company asked Secretary of State John Kerry to suspend the State Department's review of the pipeline application.
Obama said Friday that Kerry recommended that Keystone be rejected because the project was not in the national interest.
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, who co-sponsored the bill that the president rejected, noted the timing of Obama's decision.
"The president now finds it pressing to make a decision just as the company is asking for a pause to resolve any concerns," he said.
He urged other senators to join in a push to override Obama's decision.
"The Keystone XL pipeline is about more than a single pipeline," he said. "In the bigger picture, it’s about building the kind of energy plan and infrastructure we need to make America stronger and more secure, now and in the future."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that "I wish I were surprised by the president’s decision to reject this jobs and infrastructure project.
"But it’s become painfully clear that the president is more interested in appeasing deep-pocketed special interests and extremists than helping tens of thousands of Americans who could have benefited from Keystone’ s good jobs."
Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe attributed the arduous process to mere "political gamesmanship."
"This decision is an embarrassment to our country, as China has previously stated it is ready to step in and seize this economic opportunity," he said. "It goes to show that the president is more interested in appeasing his wealthy environmental donors than helping the private sector create jobs for working families."
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said that "a decision this poorly made is not symbolic, but deeply cynical.
"It does not rest on the facts. It continues to distort them," she said. "It is a triumph of fringe politics over sound policy."
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, called Obama's move "par for the course."
"The Obama administration has spent seven years delaying this common-sense project," he said. "It has reviewed thousands of public comments and completed five environmental-impact statements — all of which found the pipeline would have no significant impact on the environment."
Thune said the pipeline would have created as many as 4,000 jobs in South Dakota.
"The only explanation for today’s decision is that the administration has squeezed from this project’s unnecessary delay every last bit of political expediency that remained," he said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called for "new leadership in the White House" because of the decision.
"The Democratic Party, led by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, has moved so far the left that they care more about extreme liberal special-interest groups than the American people."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.