When the State Department moved Thursday to postpone a decision on whether the Keystone XL oil pipeline serves the national interests of the United States -- a question it has been weighing in one form or another for more than three years -- environmental groups found much to celebrate.
But they also surely know that the dispute over Keystone XL -- a proxy, really, for broader and still unresolved debates over oil, climate change and energy policy in America -- is far from over, not least because the delay was much more about political expediency than it was about environmental due process. As much as anything else, delaying the decision until after the 2012 presidential election suggests that the United States is much farther away from a consensus on clean energy than anyone wants to admit. Given the global thirst for oil and the lack of clear policies that would begin to make carbon pollution a more expensive affair, it also seems certain that development of Canada's planet-warming oil patch will continue -- with Keystone XL or without it.
The Keystone XL project, proposed in 2008 by the Calgary-based pipeline builder TransCanada as a conduit linking a fast-growing, environmentally controversial, and carbon-intensive oil deposit in Alberta to a fleet of refiners on the Texas Gulf Coast, will undergo at least another year of scrutiny, federal officials said last week. The nominal reason for the delay: It gives the State Department, which is saddled by a 1968 executive order with permitting authority over infrastructure projects that cross a U.S. border, more time to explore alternative routes in Nebraska. Residents and legislators in that state have vigorously objected to the pipeline's currently planned route, which would take it straight through the grassy, groundwater-rich dunes known as the Sand Hills.
Assuming a new route around this sensitive area could be agreed upon -- a process that is expected to take until the early months of 2013 -- State Department officials, with input from other agencies, would then consider the larger role the Keystone XL project would play in the national interest. "Among the relevant issues that would be considered are environmental concerns -- including climate change," the State Department said in issuing its decision Thursday, as well as "energy security, economic impacts, and foreign policy."
Of course, these are presumably all issues that the State Department has been deliberating for the last three years, so pipeline supporters were flummoxed, perhaps justifiably, by the call for more time.
But President Obama was clearly in a pickle. Rejecting the pipeline outright would risk the wrath of the deep-pocketed oil and gas industries, trade unions and other supporters of the project who argued strongly that the project represented tens of thousands of American jobs and a stable, friendly supply of oil. Jack Gerard, the president and chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, had warned of "political consequences" if the pipeline were not approved.
Approving it, on the other hand, ran the risk of fundamentally alienating those environmentally-minded voters who played a large role in sweeping Obama into office in 2008. "We don't think that we will be able to effectively mobilize our members until the president keeps his promise to fight climate change effectively and stand up to big polluters and to protect public health," Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a phone call with reporters late last month.
And so, as some observers have put it, Obama punted. The move gives temporary succor to greens and, Obama's advisers would presumably hope, only a mild case of heartburn to the fossil fuel industry and its supporters who, while surely disappointed, still have a pipeline proposal out there to lobby for.
In a phone call with reporters late Thursday, Kerri-Ann Jones, the assistant secretary of the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, which is overseeing the permitting process, insisted that the decision was not a political one, and that it rested solely with her agency. "The White House did not have anything to do with this decision, except we consulted with them once we were moving toward it," Jones said. "But they did not direct us to make this decision or -- this is -- this authority is delegated to the Secretary of State through the executive order.
"It was our decision," she added.
Virtually no one among the pipeline's supporters believed this.
"There is no real issue about the environment that requires further investigation, as the president's own State Department has recently concluded after extensive project reviews that go back more than three years," declared Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute. "This is about politics and keeping a radical constituency opposed to any and all oil and gas development in the president's camp in November 2012."
Though he differed in the particulars, Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity, also took umbrage at what he saw as pure political jockeying on Obama's part. "This isn't a game of hot potato," he said. "Keystone XL shouldn't be approved under any circumstances."
Whether TransCanada's project will live long enough to see State make a final decision is unclear. The company will need to find ways to weather the losses it will incur for having signed contracts and issued procurement orders according to a schedule now rendered moot. TransCanada executives have suggested that the delays will cost them upwards of $1 million a day -- though Russ Girling, the company's chief executive, said last week that his company, while frustrated, would be waiting it out.
If that proves so, then among the very first issues to be faced by a newly reelected Obama -- or by his Republican replacement -- will still be whether or not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. And even if the Keystone XL project bites the dust, efforts to connect the tar sands of Alberta to the global oil market, either by way of the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Coast of British Columbia, will almost certainly continue.
"While the United States seeks 'security of oil supply,' Canadian oil sands producers and governments seek 'security of oil demand,' " said Jackie Forrest, a Calgary-based energy market analyst with the consultancy IHS CERA, in an email memo on Friday. "Canada is likely to intensify its efforts to export oil to Asia. In the past few years, Asian companies have invested over $10 billion dollars in oil sands -- the vast majority coming from China. Asia offers Canada the 'security of demand' it seeks, through the combination of investment dollars and a growing appetite for oil."
As if on cue, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has already pointed Asia's way. The State Department decision to delay Keystone XL, Harper was quoted by Reuters as saying during this weekend's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu, "does underscore the necessity of Canada making sure that we are able to access Asia markets for our energy products. That will be an important priority of our government going forward and I indicated that yesterday to the president of China."
Forrest also suggested that while green groups might reasonably celebrate a political triumph in last week's State Department decision, stalling -- or even killing -- the Keystone XL project is a bit more like Whac-A-Mole than any of them would like to admit. "The delay to Keystone XL," she said, "increases the probability that other pipeline solutions to bring oil sands to new U.S. markets will move forward."
She pointed to one potential substitute from TransCanada competitor Enbridge, which is busy cobbling together plans to link up existing pipelines in the U.S. and Canada in such a way as to give producers in the Alberta tar sands the access to Gulf Coast refineries and ports that they so desperately seek. Such efforts would not require a nettlesome presidential permit since the company would merely be re-purposing a border-crossing pipeline it already owns.
Larry Springer, a spokesman for Enbridge, suggested that as such, his company's proposal could avoid the outcry that has thus far hobbled Keystone XL. "We would be more or less following existing pipelines and existing routes," he said, "so we hope it will be just like any other project."
That may be wishful thinking. More than 1,000 Americans engaged in acts of civil disobedience -- and were promptly arrested -- in protests against the Keystone XL at the White House in August. More than 10,000 demonstrators descended on Washington again just a week before the State Department decided to hold off on a decision. "This could become really the next big fight here," said Damon Moglen, a the climate and energy project director with Friends of the Earth, of Enbridge's project.
Perhaps so, but stanching America's vast thirst for oil will require a far more mainstream effort. Americans currently slurp up 18 million barrels per day, roughly a quarter of the global total. Well over half of that is imported. Currently, most projections show that while American demand is unlikely to grow much over the next few decades, it's also not likely to drop -- at least not without serious policy changes designed to encourage the development of cleaner alternatives.
The Obama administration's decision to punt the Keystone XL decision down the line highlights just how far environmentalists still have to go to get the country focused on clean energy policies.
"Having won this part of the battle, let's take a deep breath and remind ourselves that we're really just getting started," the Sierra Club's Michael Brune wrote last week after the State department announcement. "Because we haven't yet defeated the pipeline for good. And defeating the pipeline isn't even our highest aspiration. This movement is much bigger than just about the tar sands. It's about getting off oil as quickly as we can and replacing dirty power with clean energy as soon as possible."
That remains an uphill battle.
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fanned
Under the agreement , essentially everyhting that is exported to the US within any given year cannot be halted the following year , or more importanly the volume reduced.
Such is the agreement that once the pipeline is built and the oil flows , that the US will get it's oil no matter the cost and no matter the obstacles. It is with everything that is exported and what very few are aware of . ( especially for water that will be of greater value than oil in the following decades )
We must take a stand now to stop it, because there will be no tomorrow.
http://citizenshift.org/canada-prohibited-cutting-gas-and-oil-exports-us
Damn everything else. Now lets see how Obama spins this little problem in his favor. How do you blame the GOP for this situation of these jobs are bad jobs. Does he really think America is that lazy?
Does he want to get back to the America that used to build stuff (think Rachel Maddow commercials in front of Hoover Dam) or the new America that is economically crippled by the environmental zealots who can't think past their noses?
To help you calculate your royalties check, we use the Alaska Oil Trust benchmark, $3 per bbl per person per day. For example, in Alaska, pumping 600,000 bbls per day with 600,000 population, your oil royalty check would be $3 * (600,000/600,000) * 365, or about $1000 per year.
TransCanada will pump 800,000 bbls per day through American Heartland States with a population of 25,000,000 combined. If you live in a 'Keystone' state, you are entitled to an annual royalty check. Amounts will vary, but may be $3 * (800,000 / 25,000,000) * 365, or about $35 per year!!
After Fed deficit reduction withholding taxes of $14,000,000,000,000 / 200,000,000 US taxpayers paid down over ten years, your Keystone royalty check will be -$6,965. The American firm Nelnet has agreed to hold your withholding tax as a reverse mortgage on your home, of -$580 a month.
Have an nice oily day!
"The oil sand industry is one of the major GHG emitters in Canada and the entire process approximately doubles to triples the amount of CO2 released per barrel of petroleum used compared to conventional extraction. The mining process emits about 35 kg CO2 equivalent/barrel, the upgrading process 45 kg CO2 equivalent/barrel, and the Steam Assistance Gravity Drainage (SAGD) process 55 kg CO2 equivalent/barrel.
"Both mining and in situ operations use large volumes of water for their extraction process, between 2 and 4.5 volume units of water is used for the extraction of one volume unit bitumen. Currently the mining operations are licensed to divert 370 million cubic meters (equivalent to 2.3 million barrels) of fresh water per year from the Athabasca river. The planned mining projects will push the cumulative diversion with 529 million cubic meter (3.3 million barrels) per year. Almost all process water ends up in tailing ponds."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3839
What is not so easily papered over are legitimate LEGAL and FINANCIAL frauds in this project. Trust your lawyers! We must defeat the Feds claim that State Department has eminent domain. This is a state's rights issue for the pipeline corridor, and State cannot steal family farms legally using a claim of 'eminent domain' for a PRIVATE PROJECT. Neither can State avoid imposing NAFTA tariffs on the Keystone'a many violations. Neither can State over rule EPA on pollution and cleanup set-aside trust fund deposits. WHO PAID OFF THE US STATE DEPARTMENT!?!?
Don't confuse TCs massive liability by clouding it with green-mail. It weakens our public's case.
The other stark reality is that perhaps, to maintain the lifestyle we have become accustomed to, we need energy and lots of it. Can you imagine a Toronto in which there are no cars? What would have to use to replace the cars? Perhaps we can go back to horses again. Yup, gotta love the smell of horse dooky in the summer months.
Green energy simply isn't plentiful nor reliable enough to meet the growing energy needs for all the iPad snobs who will tell you we need to reduce, reuse, recycle, but I'm not giving up my electronic toys. Toys by the way which need electricity to run from. Need to burn dinosaurs currently to keep up with the iSnob demands.
Isn't there a huge energy boom going on in North Dakota now? Pop a refinery there and save some pipe.
We're fracked...
Never happen. The environmental zealots have hogtied the countrys capacity. They will do their best to prevent the building of anything that would process the oil.
These people are your enemy not your friend.
The reason for this pipeline is simple. Canada, and US producers in North Dakota, for that matter, are trying to get a better price for oil than dumping it into already glutted markets in the Midwest. By getting it into the heart of the US refining industry, the US Gulf Coast, the oil will be worth more and will replace some imported crude.
Refineries make a very low profit margin. Valero, the largest refining company in the US has lost money more years than they have made a profit in recent years.
We The People of the US own the vast majority of petroleum in the US. The US Government makes 5-6 times as much money as the producers and/or refiners make from petroleum.
We The People are also the consumers of the majority of petroleum products.
We The People are the driving force behind the petroleum industry.
One thing the refineries on the Gulf Coast may be hoping is that they can make a lot of profitable products and very little gasoline. Gasoline is a waste product and becomes expensive when government-specified additives and taxes are added. Unfortunately for refineries, in making the new low-sulfur diesel, more waste gasoline must be made. That is why we had a gasoline glut when this new diesel was first made. But we quickly wasted a lot of that gasoline so that the price rose up. Gasoline just dropped 60 cents a gallon around here.
Not.
Do you get it yet? Taking without compensation is a TORT, actionable in a Fed court!!