UPDATE 2-Obama to rule on Keystone despite builder's plea for delay

(Adds Senator Hoeven quotes, TransCanada earnings)
By Timothy Gardner and Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama wants
to rule on the long-pending Keystone XL oil pipeline by the end
of his presidency, the White House said on Tuesday, calling a
request by the project's Canadian developer to delay a review
"unusual."
Obama, who has increasingly focused on environmental issues
as his presidency nears its final year, plans to decide on
TransCanada Corp 's TRP.TO pipeline before he leaves office in
2017, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
The president has increasingly signaled the $8 billion
pipeline may not be approved.
Obama is concerned the method used to extract oil in Canada
would be "extraordinarily dirty," a description the Canadian
government has argued is unfair.
He also said that the pipeline would not be approved if it
mostly benefited Canadian companies and would contribute to
climate change.
Faced with dimming prospects for approval of the pipeline
that would help link Canada's Alberta oil fields to U.S.
refineries, the Canadian company on Monday asked the Obama
administration to delay its review, signaling that prolonged
uncertainty is preferable to rejection of the project.
The request "seems unusual," Earnest said, as the process
has already taken more than seven years. Noting that the
presidential election is a year away, Earnest said, "I don't
think that that's a good excuse for, basically, spending the
next year doing nothing."
TransCanada's plea has been widely interpreted as an attempt
to avert an impending "no" from Obama to the nearly 1,200-mile
(2,000-km) cross-border pipeline. It would carry 830,000 barrels
a day of mostly Canadian oil sands crude through Nebraska en
route to refineries and ports along the U.S. Gulf Coast.
TransCanada, which reported a better-than-expected quarterly
profit on Tuesday, said it is pushing to develop Energy East, an
alternative to Keystone XL. The company's earnings rose 32
percent in the third quarter, helped by a stronger U.S. dollar.
Its shares were up 0.5 percent to C$44.44.
For years Keystone has been the heart of a struggle between
environmentalists opposed to oil sands development and defenders
of fossil fuels. Environmentalists, an important part of Obama's
base, say approving Keystone would breathe life into Canada's
oil sands because alternative pipelines are nearly full.
All the Democratic presidential hopefuls, including
front-runner Hillary Clinton, oppose the project, while most of
the Republican presidential candidates support it.
The State Department, which is considering the project
because it crosses the border with Canada, said it is in the
process of responding to TransCanada but had no estimate of how
long it would take.
The pipeline has many supporters in the U.S. Congress from
oil-producing states, as it would also carry a small amount of
domestic oil. But earlier this year Obama vetoed a bill that
would have given Congress the power to approve the project.
Senator John Hoeven, a Republican from oil-producing North
Dakota and a Keystone supporter, said he had meetings with
TransCanada about its plans to request a delay. He said the
strategy was practical for the government of Canada's new Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, also a Keystone supporter.
"My opinion is the new government coming in is looking at
this as a pragmatic way of handling it," Hoeven said.