Today is your last chance to provide an official comment to the State Department regarding whether the Keystone pipeline expansion should be approved. Most environmental organizations are urging the president to block the pipeline – 350.org suggests that if he approves Keystone XL, Obama will become the “pipeline president” – but is stopping Keystone XL a slam-dunk for the environment?
Environmental groups have wondered if former Secretary of State Clinton was “too conflicted by lobbyist ties” to make a fair decision as to whether the pipeline is in our national interest. In a New York Times op-ed last week, pipeline opponent Rep Raúl Grijalva essentially argued that the Obama administration is at risk of becoming like the Bush administration in “tipping the scales in favor of corporations that want special treatment.”
Has Secretary of State John Kerry, once the darling of environmental groups, sold out? Is the State Department filled with patsies for the oil companies? Should we conclude that Obama, by not already rejecting the pipeline application, is wobbly on climate despite all his rhetoric (and actions) to the contrary?
While I hope the president denies TransCanada the permit, the issue is more complex than many let on. I am not suggesting that corporate influence does not play a role here – but it is important to recognize that there are legitimate arguments in favor of the pipeline even from a climate perspective.
If built, the pipeline will transport oil from the Canadian tar sands to refineries in the US. The tar sands itself is an environmental travesty. The nicest thing one can say about the tar sands might be that there are other environmental disasters worldwide that give it a run for its money. Mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia and rare earth mineral mining in China come to mind.
But here’s the rub: the pipeline is not the same thing as the tar sands and there are other ways to get tar sands oil to market – primarily rail. In a prior post, I commented on the expansion of rail transport. According to the State Department’s February 2014 Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (the “SEIS”), rail transport of tar sands oil has rocketed from practically nothing in early 2011 to 180,000 barrels per day in late 2013. Rail loading capacity is estimated to already be nearing one million barrels per day – that is beyond the pipeline’s capacity of about 830,000 barrels per day. And as you might expect, shipping oil by rail leads to more greenhouse gas emissions than by shipping it through a pipeline, probably around 30% to 40% more, according to data in the SEIS.
Ultimately, whether the pipeline expansion causes more greenhouse gas emissions or fewer depends upon whether building the pipeline results in additional tar sands oil being brought to market and, if it does, whether greenhouse gas emissions from that additional amount are greater than the emissions saved (compared to rail transport) by building the pipeline. Rail transportation is more expensive, of course, but the SEIS suggests that if oil prices remain above $75 per barrel, transportation costs will not constrain production.
Despite the risk that blocking the pipeline expansion could actually lead to increased greenhouse gas emissions, I am hopeful that the president will deny the Keystone XL permit for one important reason: blocking the permit will send a message, a very loud message, that the United States has no desire to make it easy for Canada to develop a greenhouse gas intensive project like the tar sands. Moreover, I am hopeful that environmentalists will turn more attention to stopping rail transport of tar sands oil thereby curtailing total tar sands oil production.
Another good option (meaning “good” in a very relative sense) might be for the president to approve the pipeline subject to an agreement by Canadian officials to limit tar sands oil production or to otherwise take specific actions to mitigate some of the harm. In a recent editorial, Marcia McNutt, the editor-in-chief of Science, suggests Obama approve the pipeline expansion on the condition that Canadian authorities take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from extracting the tar and processing it into a liquid.
Remember, you still have time to comment. The best way to do so is by visiting the government’s website directly. Clicking through on 350.org or another environmental group’s site is less effective; your comment will be identified and tallied as a mere form submission. Even if you’ve done that before, take the time now to provide your own unique comment instead. There is no deadline for handcuffing yourself to the White House fence, but you better get writing now if you want to submit an official written comment.
Whatever the administration decides about issuing the permit, we need both a national policy and an international agreement that will move us toward an orderly phase out of greenhouse gas emissions. Pure Cap-and-Dividend is just such a plan.