President Obama Arrives In Oklahoma City

President Barack Obama has arrived in Oklahoma where he'll spend the night before a visit to the oil transportation and storage hub at Cushing in northeastern Oklahoma.

Wednesday, March 21st 2012, 10:57 pm

By: News On 6

President Obama Arrives In Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY -- President Barack Obama has arrived in Oklahoma where he'll spend the night before a visit to the oil transportation and storage hub at Cushing in northeastern Oklahoma.

Obama arrived at Tinker Air Force Base on Air Force One shortly after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and will make the short trip to downtown Oklahoma City to spend the night.

Obama greeted Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett and other dignitaries Wednesday night at Tinker Air Force Base before jogging over to greet a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the air base tarmac.

The president is to travel to Cushing Thursday where he'll announce a directive to federal agencies to fast-track an oil pipeline from the Oklahoma town to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast -- backing a segment of the larger Keystone XL project that he rejected earlier this year.

The 485-mile pipeline would remove a bottleneck in the country's oil transportation system, as rising oil production has outgrown pipelines' capacity to deliver oil to refineries.