After waiting seven years for a decision, the company behind the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas has asked the U.S. State Department to suspend its review of the project.
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Last week, President Obama announced his decision to kill the pipeline proposal because Secretary of State John Kerry and the State Department had informed him that Keystone XL “would not serve the national interest of the United States”.
Premier Brad Wall also found the Keystone XL decision to be disappointing. Now is the time to make these choices – especially with so much potential from energy efficiency and the plunging cost of renewable energy.
The pipeline has overwhelming public support, along with the approval of state legislatures along the pipeline’s projected path, from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. There are unknowns involved – just how global warming will affect us is prime among them.
Obama said that approving Keystone would have undercut USA leadership ahead of this month’s climate change talks in Paris. We are on a road to destruction, and we must change direction significantly and soon.
Seems like we can’t stand a little prosperity. It is hard to detect any victory for the environment in a decision that will encourage a statistically more risky mode of moving oil. It’s interesting to note that both candidates Obama and McCain in the 2008 election cycle, had climate action high on their agendas. From a policy perspective there’s an irony in this that is nearly perverse. The United States already has over 210 natural gas pipelines criss-crossing the nation according to eia.gov (Environmental Information Administration). Then why reject the pipeline?
“The pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy”, Obama told a press conference. Second, gasoline prices rise and fall more because of perceived political and economic volatility than they do for reasons of abundance of supply. It may help in understanding that comment to reflect that Obama wants Americans to stop using fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – on a radical environmentalist timetable, rather than when that can be done without damaging the economy and the quality of life of almost all Americans. He kept it alive until now because of the jobs rationale that was always at the surface of those arguing in its favor. That is the consensus of the vast majority of those who study these issues. The Democratic presidential candidates all oppose the pipeline project; by rejecting the project has Obama neutralized the pipeline as a political issue? I’m going with the best minds and experts in the world who say, in effect, “It will be overwhelmingly bad … ice melting, oceans rising, and storms and droughts strengthening”.
Not all of the blame lies with the president. But since the project was not approved, that oil must be moved by rail – a costlier and more emissions-intensive process. Could the pipeline project be revived in the next administration assuming a Republican wins the presidency?
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What does not fit into the pipelines will be carried by rail, which is more risky, dirtier and more expensive. Actually doing so, however, would require getting the Canadian government back on board and also getting TransCanada to recommit to a project that has been uncertain since its inception almost a decade ago. So everyone would need to be onboard, and solidly so, before it could be relaunched.
