WASHINGTON—Leading environmental groups declared on Monday that the Obama administration's latest environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline fundamentally violated the nation's core environmental law, an unmistakable warning that they would sue the State Department if it continued to insist that the pipeline poses no significant environmental risk.

As if to bolster their case, the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in as well with its own rebuke, saying that it found "environmental objections" to the State Department's controversial draft environmental impact statement, issued in March, which it deemed "insufficient." A public comment period ended on Monday, and these were among the first comments released.

Industry groups, in their own comments, broadly endorsed the State Department's approach, which has been widely seen as offering a green light to Keystone, if not an immediate one. Months more of reviewing by the Obama administration lies ahead.

WASHINGTON—Advocates and opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are due to file detailed comments on its environmental impacts on Monday, after the State Department refused to extend the comment period, which environmental groups had complained was too short.

As many as a million members of the public are expected to meet the comment deadline, which by happenstance fell on Earth Day, April 22. Comments are also expected from industry, labor and environmental groups on both sides of the debate over the proposed pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands region to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The government of Alberta, the American Petroleum Institute, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and other groups said they will release copies of their comments soon. But it is not clear when the State Department will make all the written comments public, as required under the National Environmental Protection Act.

The commenters are all seeking to influence the draft supplemental environmental impact statement, or SEIS, that the State Department released in March, which appeared to open the door to a decision later this year to grant the pipeline a permit. Once the final SEIS is issued, the State Department must begin a separate deliberation to determine if the project is in the national interest—a question that goes beyond environmental considerations.

WASHINGTON – A House subcommittee has taken the first step toward legislation that would push through the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, bypassing the State Department and the White House while limiting other regulatory and court reviews.

The subcommittee on energy and power voted 17-9 on Tuesday to approve the Northern Route Approval Act and send it to the full Energy and Commerce Committee. Two Democrats joined 15 Republicans in support of the bill.

The legislation declares that the delivery of oil from Canada's tar sands to refineries in the United States "is in the national interest because of the need to lessen dependence upon insecure foreign sources."

It describes the ongoing Federal regulatory process as "an insurmountable obstacle."

"No Presidential permit shall be required for the pipeline," the bill flatly decrees.

WASHINGTON—The premier of Alberta, Canada, made another visit to Washington D.C. last week, pleading again for U.S. approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would carry Alberta's heavy crude to refineries on the Texas coast.

Without expanded access to markets in the United States and beyond, Premier Alison Redford said, her province's oil sands crude is selling for discounted prices—and that is creating big problems for Alberta's budget, which relies heavily on oil royalties.

"It has really had an impact on our revenues, you know—we've expected that probably this year alone because of that differential that we are seeing about a $6 billion drop in revenues," Redford said at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday.

It is a bit of a novelty for Washington to host the leader of a petro state controlling one of the richest oil reserves in the world, come to plead poverty as part of her sales pitch.

But in Canada, it was a familiar refrain—and one that many who study the province's management of its natural resources dispute.

The province's budget problems are not due to any discount in the price of bitumen or other fuels from the tar sands, they say, but to the way Alberta has subsidized the oil industry by charging next to nothing in royalties for the oil.