State Department Paves Way for Keystone XL Approval, Ignores Reality of Climate Change Impacts

The Obama Administration just released a report that positions the president to greenlight the project. So as the president goes to make his decision in the coming weeks, let's hope he remembers his lofty words from his inaugural address.
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.

State Department releases Keystone XL environmental impact statement, ignores reality of climate change impacts.

This afternoon, the State Department released its Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on the controversial Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, claiming that the pipeline will "not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects." The SEIS paves the way for President Obama's approval of the pipeline despite widespread concern over the climate impacts of tar sands oil.

The State Department assessment does acknowledge that excavation of the Canadian tar sands oil would result in 17 percent more climate change emissions than the average barrel of heavy crude oil. But the report continues to say that the KXL pipeline would have no adverse impact on climate change because if the pipeline were not approved, companies would ship tar sands oil via railroad.

In reality, the Keystone XL pipeline is a "fundamental element in the oil industry's plan to triple production of tar sands oil from 2 million barrels per day (bpd) to 6 million bpd by 2030" (and eventually to 9 million bpd), according to a whitepaper (PDF) from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The NRDC whitepaper quotes Andrew Potter, a Managing Director at CIBC World Markets, an investment banking subsidiary of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, as saying, "Even if you build every single pipe that's on the table right now... you're still short pipeline capacity... For the growth to continue, all the proposed export pipeline capacity and more will need to be built, and soon."

With other options for transporting tar sands oil facing significant opposition, Keystone XL is the path for tar sands industry growth. The Obama Administration just released a report that positions the president to greenlight the project. So as the president goes to make his decision in the coming weeks, let's hope he remembers his lofty words from his inaugural address: "We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."


For more breaking news on the Keystone XL decision, see DeSmogBlog's live blog here.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot