WASHINGTON – A critical U.S. government environmental study states that the controversial Keystone XL pipeline will have no significant environmental or climate change impact, essentially giving U.S. President Barack Obama the justification he needs to approve the project.
The only apparent significant concern raised in the final environmental impact study (EIS) is the potential for pipeline spills contaminating underground water resources. It states, however, that spills “are expected to be rare and relatively small.”
The study further states that the greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline operations “are deemed minimal relative to the proposed project.”
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]The study confirmed that the oilsands produces more greenhouse gases – about 17 per cent – than the average U.S. oil production.
While extensively analytical, the study does not come to any definitive conclusions about the overall effect of the pipeline on climate change or U.S. environmental policy leaving enough leeway for each side of this contentious issue to claim victory.
Nor does it offer any conclusive opinion on the assumption that the pipeline will increase the development of the oilsands and thereby increase greenhouse gas emissions.
While it compares the pipeline with rail carriers, it makes no determination on which is safer.
Kerri Ann Jones, Assistant Secretary overseeing the Keystone XL application, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will assess the report in relation to a wide range of issues including the state of oil markets, the overall U.S. policy on climate change and foreign relations.
“Basically this document has a tremendous amount of analysis,” she said. “But it is only a part of what we have to look at to make this decision.”
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said the U.S. State Department report “confirmed that Keystone XL would not have a significant environmental impact … including no appreciable impact on greenhouse gases.”
Oliver told reporters the EIS has made him “more confident” Obama will approve the Keystone XL.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford said the report reflects Alberta’s submissions to Washington lawmakers and is an “important step toward approval of a pipeline.”
Russ Girling, president and CEO of Keystone owner TransCanada, said the report shows that the pipeline will have a “minimal impact” on the environment and won’t impact climate change.
The study has shows no increase in GHG emissions from oilsands because “oilsands are going to expand anyway,” he said in a conference call. He added that pipeline’s capacity is already “sold out.”
Environmental groups, however, took an entirely different view of the report’s analysis.
Bill McKibben, founder of the climate change activist group 350.org, said the Keystone XL project is the first environmental issue that has brought a large number of Americans in to the streets in many years, and he believes the report bolsters the argument to reject the project.
“This report gives President Obama everything he needs in order to block this project,” McKibben said. “It makes it clear that it will contribute, under any scenario where we take climate change seriously, it will contribute significantly to climate change.
“This is the gut-check moment and the State Department, though it has been biased and corrupt throughout this process, has had to concede a certain amount to reality today.”
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz with the Natural Resources Defense Council said the report “confirms that tarsands crude means a dirtier, more dangerous future for our children. The bottom line is the tarsands pipeline fails the president’s climate test.”
The Environmental Defence Fund issued a statement claiming the State Department EIS has concluded the pipeline will lead to “more tarsands development, more pollution and more dangerous climate change.”
“Since the beginning of the assessment, the oil industry has had a direct pipeline into the agency,” Friends of the Earth president Erich Pica said in a statement. “Perhaps most frustrating, is the apparent collusion between the State Department, oil industry and the Canadian government.”
Pica added that the release of the report before issues of conflict of interest are settled shows an “eagerness to please the oil industry and Canadian government.”
“The State Department is issuing this report amidst an ongoing investigation into conflicts of interest, and lying, by its contractor,” he said.
Assistant Secretary of State Jones said, however, “We feel confident that there are no issues (of conflict) related to this contractor.”
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]The Keystone XL’s annual emissions would be equivalent to the emissions produced by 300,000 passenger vehicles or 72,000 homes or 0.4 coal-fired power plants, the study says.
It also states that emissions produced by the maximum 830,000 barrels of bitumen from the oilsands plus crude oil from the Bakken fields in South Dakota carried daily by the pipeline will produce emissions equivalent to those produced annually by up to 5.7 million passenger cars or 7.8 coal-fired power plants.
U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf emphasized that the EIS is “not a decision. It is another step in the process.”
She said, however, that it marks the beginning of the involvement of Kerry, who will use the EIS report in making his decision on the Keystone XL. Kerry’s recommendation will be taken to President Obama, who will make the final decision on the pipeline. There is no deadline for these decisions.
“I stress that this is only one factor in a determination that will weigh many other factors as well,” she said of the EIS. “And for Secretary Kerry climate and environmental priorities will of course be part of his decision making, as will a range of other issues.”
She said eight government agencies have up to 90 days from Feb. 5 to reply to the study. The general public, however, has only 30 days because it already had a chance to reply to the preliminary impact study released last year.
The report states that the cost of pipeline construction would total about $3.1 billion US with another $233 million spent on construction camps. Construction would create about 42,000 jobs across the U.S. of which 16,100 are direct jobs to firms awarded contracts for goods and services. About 3,900 would be direct construction jobs.
Only 35 permanent plus 15 temporary jobs, however, would be created once the pipeline is up and running.
Property taxes created by the pipeline would be about $55.6 million US annually.
