TransCanada still has not settled on a route for its Keystone Pipeline that bypasses or protects the aquifer in Nebraska, as requested by Nebraska (GOP) officials. That delay means the project couldn’t come on line until 2015 at the earliest, despite GOP attempts to co-opt the Obama Administration’s permit regime.

After weeks of apprehension, the Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself and will step in to supply drinking water to residents of Dimock, PA, a de facto acknowledgment that fracking led to contamination of the water supply in this town along the Delaware River Basin.

The Obama Administration officially denied the Keystone Pipeline permit pending before the State Department. The White House statement supporting the decision blamed it on the unreasonable time restriction imposed by Congress and the GOP, while leaving the door open for a renewed application.

You just can’t get rid of zombie Larry Summers. He can get drummed out of Harvard. He can see the deregulation policies he pushed in the Clinton Administration lead to a financial meltdown. He can preside over a sluggish economy for two years during the Obama Administration, after which Congress flips to the opposition. Now he reportedly wants to head the World Bank.

Before Congress even passed its two-month stopgap payroll tax/UI legislation, the State Department had a warning. The bill included a mandate that the Administration give an up-or-down approval or rejection on a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days. The State Department said flatly that this would force them to reject the permit, because it would not give them enough time to complete their environmental review. Today they announced they’ll do what they promised.

We, humans – our whole ecosystem – cannot exist without water. There is no substitute. None. So, the questions of who “owns” the water on our Planet should be or major concern to each of us. Should water be owned privately or held jointly for the common good? Why do we not consider those who pollute water (like the operators of fracking operations) to be guilty of a major crime?

Dimock, PA, home to dozens of fracking wells and featured in the movie Gasland, experienced massive contamination with their water supply. Cabot Oil & Gas, the main fracking company, provided free water to the residents, under an order from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. But with a new governor, PA DEP let Cabot stop the water shipments. At first, the federal EPA said it would provide water, but then the EPA canceled the delivery. What now?

I’m saving my “What to Look for in 2012″ listicle for tomorrow, but one of the issues that may not make the list, but which is terribly important, is the battle in the states over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. 2011 was the year when this issue finally bubbled up to the surface (pardon the pun) and into the consciousness of the public. The critically acclaimed Gasland came out in 2010, but anti-facking forces benefited this year from some scientific revelations. Independent studies for the first time identified fracking as a cause of methane contamination and water pollution, and late in the year, the EPA agreed in a case in Wyoming.

It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.

The Keystone XL pipeline will now either receive or be denied its construction permit by February 21, according to the schedule worked out in the two-month stopgap deal to extend the payroll tax, unemployment insurance and the doctor’s fix. But the ultimate fate of tars ands oil may not be decided for years.