The Keystone Pipeline's Journey

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At an estimated 175 billion barrels, Alberta's oil sands are the second largest oil reserve in the world behind Saudi Arabia, but they were neglected for years, except by local companies, because of high extraction costs. Since 2000, skyrocketing crude oil prices and improved extraction methods have made exploitation more economical, and have lured several multinational oil companies to mine the sands. Pictured, an aerial view of a tailings pond, leftovers from the extraction process, near Fort McMurray on Oct. 23, 2009. 

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Environmental activists gather outside the White House during a civil disobedience campaign against a the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, D.C., in 2011. The proposed oil pipeline linking Canadian producers to the U.S. Gulf Coast isn't much closer to reality after Congress failed to approve it on Nov. 18, so the plan first proposed in 2008 remains in limbo awaiting final decisions on its route through Nebraska and on the project overall.

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The operational and proposed route of the Keystone Pipeline system.

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While some American Indian tribes are concerned about the pipeline's impact on native lands and others are not, in South Dakota, TransCanada avoided the issue by simply going around the Rosebud Reservation. The tribe, located near the Nebraska border, already has a source of income from its casinos, and TransCanada eventually abandoned negotiations there.

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A construction crew lowers a section of pipe along the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline near Winona, Texas, on Dec. 5, 2012.

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Few neighborhoods don't include the oil facilities looming as a backdrop in Port Arthur, Texas. The industry hub is the end of the line for oil that would travel through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

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Signs opposing the Keystone XL pipeline are seen along its planned route near Bradshaw, Neb., on March 11, 2013.

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TransCanada's initial plans routed the pipeline through The Sandhills, an environmentally sensitive area, pictured here near Mills, Neb., on Sept. 5, 2012. Gov. Dave Heineman approved new plans that bent a path east and away from region in January 2013.

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Demonstrators conduct a "die-in" covered in oil as they protest against the Keystone pipeline and the Alberta tar sands in Chicago ahead of the 2012 NATO Summit.

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A section of the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline project runs through a residential neighborhood east of Winona, Texas, on Dec. 3, 2012.

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A member of the Center for Biological Diversity protests during a visit by President Barack Obama to Los Angeles for political fundraisers in May. The Obama administration said this spring that its review of the XL project was extended indefinitely due to a case with the Nebraska Supreme Court that could alter the route.

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House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Cal., left, speaks at Welspun Tubular, which has more than 350 miles of pipe awaiting the Keystone XL oil pipeline project, with Republican Congressional candidate French Hill in Little Rock, Ark., on Aug. 20. McCarthy called for the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward in a series of campaign visits during the midterm elections.

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Environmental activists inflate a long balloon to mock a pipeline during an anti-Keystone XL pipeline demonstration in front of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3. 

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Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., speaks to the press after the Senate rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline in a razor-thin 59-41 vote on Nov. 18 in Washington, D.C.