The United States has formally denied a TransCanada Corp request to pause the US review of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a State Department spokesman said on Wednesday.

John Kirby told a briefing there was no legal requirement to pause the Keystone review based on the developer’s request. Secretary of state John Kerry has not given a timeline for making a recommendation.

“The secretary believes that, out of respect for that process and all the input that has gone into it, that it is the most appropriate thing to keep that process in place, to continue the review,” Kirby added.

TransCanada’s request for a delay was seen by many as an attempt to avert a rejection from an increasingly environmentally focused Barack Obama and postpone the decision until after the November 2016 presidential election.

The White House declined to comment.

Since it was proposed seven years ago, the $8bn pipeline has been the heart of a struggle between environmentalists opposed to oil sands development and defenders of fossil fuels.

The nearly 1,200-mile (2,000-km) pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels a day of mostly Canadian oil sands crude to Nebraska en route to refineries and ports along the US Gulf Coast.