Boehner: No reason to block Keystone XL pipeline
WASHINGTON A new State Department report is the latest evidence that the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada should be approved, supporters say.
The draft report, issued Friday, finds there would be no significant environmental impact to most resources along the proposed route from western Canada to refineries in Texas. The report also said other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change.
The new report "again makes clear there is no reason for this critical pipeline to be blocked one more day," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. After four years of what he called "needless delays," Boehner said it is time for President Barack Obama "to stand up for middle-class jobs and energy security and approve the Keystone pipeline."
Environmentalists see the State Department report in a vastly different light.
They say it was inadequate and failed to account for climate risks posed by the pipeline. The report also is based on a false premise, opponents say -- namely, that tar sands in western Canada will be developed for oil production regardless of whether the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.
"Americans are already suffering from the consequences of global warming, from more powerful storms like Hurricane Sandy to drought conditions currently devastating the Midwest and Southwest," said Daniel Gatti of the group Environment America. Production of oil from Canadian tar sands could add as much as 240 billion metric tons of global warming pollution to the atmosphere, Gatti said, a potential catastrophe that would hasten the arrival of the worst effects of global warming.
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Gatti and other opponents said development of the vast tar sands is far from certain, despite assurances by the project's supporters.
"Tar sands can be stopped, and we are stopping it," Gatti said, citing a rally in Washington last month attended by an estimated 35,000 people. Project opponents also have blocked construction in Texas and Oklahoma and have been arrested outside the White House gate.
The pipeline plan has become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over climate change. Republicans and business and labor groups have urged the Obama administration to approve the project as a source of jobs and a step toward North American energy independence. Environmental groups have been pressuring the president to reject the pipeline, saying it would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming. They also worry about a spill.
The State Department review stopped short of recommending approval of the project, but it gave the Obama administration political cover if it chooses to endorse the pipeline in the face of opposition from many Democrats and environmental groups. State Department approval of the 1,700-mile pipeline is needed because it crosses a U.S. border.
The lengthy report says Canadian tar sands are likely to be developed, regardless of whether the U.S. approves the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil through Montana, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma.
The report acknowledges that development of tar sands in Alberta would create greenhouse gases but makes clear that other methods of transporting the oil -- including rail, trucks and barges -- also pose a risk to the environment.
The State Department analysis for the first time evaluated two options using rail: shipping the oil on trains to existing pipelines or to oil tankers. The report shows that those other methods would release more greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming than the pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline, according to the report, would release annually the same amount of global warming pollution as 626,000 passenger cars.
A scenario that would move the oil on trains to mostly existing pipelines would release 8 percent more greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide than Keystone XL. That scenario would not require State Department approval because any new pipelines would not cross the U.S border.
Another alternative that relies mostly on rail to move the oil to the Canadian west coast, where it would be loaded onto oil tankers to the U.S. Gulf Coast, would result in 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.
In both alternatives, the oil would be shipped in rail cars as bitumen, a thick, tar-like substance, rather than as a liquid.
The State Department was required to conduct a new environmental analysis after the pipeline's operator, Calgary-based TransCanada, changed the project's route though Nebraska. The Obama administration blocked the project last year because of concerns that the original route would have jeopardized environmentally sensitive land in the Sand Hills region.
The administration later approved a southern section of the pipeline, from Cushing, Okla., to the Texas coast, as part of what Obama has called an "all of the above" energy policy that embraces a wide range of sources, from oil and gas to renewables such as wind and solar.
The draft report issued Friday begins a 45-day comment period, after which the State Department will issue a final environmental report before Secretary of State John Kerry makes a recommendation about whether the pipeline is in the national interest.
Kerry has promised a "fair and transparent" review of the plan and said he hopes to decide on the project in the "near term." Most observers do not expect a decision until summer at the earliest.
Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said Friday that Canada will respect the U.S. review process and noted the importance of the pipeline to the Canadian economy.
Obama's initial rejection of the pipeline last year went over badly in Canada, which relies on the United States for 97 percent of its energy exports.
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Again, the XL Pipeline is about neither jobs nor energy self-sufficiency, and the oil is transported to be sold abroad to other nations.
Is it ever reasonable or patriotic to promote a wildly irresponsible private boondoggle at public expense? Any Washington insider will reply, with a smirk, "Here, that is standard operating procedure."
But in high-stakes matters, we should be wiser than that. Americans know oil has tremendous, increasing cost-- they have seen more than one major Gulf blowout, countless major and minor leaks in the Alaskan pipeline system, and multiple tanker spills off our coasts and elsewhere.
And by now, they realize yet another pipeline never will make a dent in our present oil appetite, or let us bring the oil tankers home from the MidEast. All that considered, Keystone XL is a net negative, with potentially huge environmental destruction. The history of the oil industry bears damaging witness.
Keystone XL got initial approval by the US Department of State without due regard for its considerable environmental risk. Email traffic between State and pipeline builder TransCanada show Keystone XL was promoted as a trade benefit, and little else. According to sources at State, there was a rush to have the project approved, and clear evidence of favoritism at State for TransCanada.
During a brief period of public comment on the first State review of Keystone XL, a storm of criticism arose about neglect of important environmental and energy issues. In remediation, an Environmental Impact Statement was issued with other federal agencies on August 26, 2011, which supplemented the earlier State report. Despite the interagency collaboration, however, the State review still handled Keystone XL as though it were a trade matter, and all other concerns were subsidiary.
Several criticisms of the Keystone XL Pipeline
Keystone XL Could Poison the Aquifer--
Farmers in the Midwest US who could not spell "Ogallala Aquifer" if their lives depended on it fully realize the risk of poisoning their own wells. Quite literally, their lives and future depend on an uncontaminated water supply, yet the safety record of pipelines in Alaska and oil operations in the Gulf region is appallingly substandard. Only recently, a pipeline across Yellowstone spilled more than 1,500 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone River.
"Mistakes Were Made" and Promptly Forgotten--
Fans of the Alaska pipeline have no recollection of the litany of promises made by BP and others in the Alyeska consortium-- promises ignored and broken, repeatedly, in the years after pipeline completion. After a 2005 major spill, BP Exploration President Steve Marshall confessed BP had not inspected critical, major sections of pipeline for several years (no "pig" inspection runs for seven years on the Western line, and none for 13 years on the Eastern line). Only five years later, after reams of BP apologies, Deepwater Horizon became the all-time model for BP indifference to safety and environmental hazard.
Pipeline Project Is Not a Significant Jobs Creator--
The Keystone XL jobs-creation figure offered by the Samuelson report is the equivalent of only two days of jobs creation by the US economy at late 1990's levels.
Samuelson's 20,000 jobs figure is an amalgam of direct and indirect job creation-- and an optimistic guesstimate at best, since the total is divided across two (or more) years. This means fewer than 10,000 jobs directly created, on annual average, over two years.
New national climate assessment (follow the link): http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50437252/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/massive-draft-report-warns-warming-changing-life-us/#.UTK0x6Jwp8F
Basics: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Current: http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/
Technical: http://www.realclimate.org/
Yet, that SPEAKER will fight tooth and nail to protect the WEALTH of the richest Americans and to promote the interests of BIG OIL.
John Boehner is definitely not a speaker nor a spokesperson of the average American.
If Republicans (BIG BUSINESS) want it so bad? there is something missing
add the jobs? they wouldn't start until years from now and will move with the pipedream all the way to the Gulf BOOM and BUST all along the way
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Is the market an oracle? If so, then that unimpeachable source of information has produced not only periodical recessions and market bubbles, but the 1929 crash and the 2007-2008 speculation bubble and crash. Which calls into question your belief in a market "wisdom" even Adam Smith never endorsed.
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Canadian environmental regulations apparently count for little as the powers-that-be salivate over riches from Alberta.
As for whether countries without comparable environmental regulations supply our oil, that describes most of them.
When did you defect to the Empire, Jedi?