Environmentalists are stepping up pressure on President Barack Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.
Hundreds of activists are mounting a protest of the pipeline project with a two-week sit-in at the White House that began Saturday.
The State Department is poised to issue its final environmental impact statement assessing the project later this month and possibly as early as Friday. That will kick off a 90-day period when federal agencies evaluate whether the project is in the “national interest.”
The Washington Post reported today that the State Department is likely to issue a finding of limited environmental impact, which could pave the way for a decision approving the pipeline.
But no matter what the State Department says, environmentalists insist that the final decision ultimately rests in Obama’s hands.
“President Obama . . . will decide whether or not to justify eminent domain seizures” of land along the route and “whether to pollute areas like Port Arthur, Texas with more refineries,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.
Environmental advocates pitch this as a test of the Obama administration’s commitment to clean energy and combatting climate change. The White House’s previous efforts in those areas have not been able to overcome resistance on Capitol Hill. But this time, Pica said, Obama “has no excuses.”
“He cannot blame Congress. He cannot blame the oil and gas industry,” Pica said. “This decision is squarely on his desk, and it is a bellwether of whether the president is committed to addressing global climate change and addressing this nation’s . . . dependence on dirty fossil fuels.”
Danielle Droitsch, a senior adviser for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that if Obama signs off on the pipeline, he will be leaving “a dirty legacy” that is “a direct contradiction to the Obama administration’s goal to combat global climate change.”
Oil industry leaders and congressional Republicans argue that Keystone XL is essential to deliver crude from a friendly North American ally to refineries on the Gulf Coast that are not served by existing pipelines. Current pipelines transport the Canadian oil sands crude to Midwest refineries, which are nearing their capacity for processing the supply.
Robert Jones, with TransCanada, says the Obama administration faces a stark choice.
“The U.S. has a decision to make,” Jones said. “Do they want to import oil from Canada or get conflict oil from OPEC nations?”
The State Department’s environmental impact statement is likely to fill several thousand pages — whenever it is released. But environmentalists insist that so far, the State Department’s reviews of the Keystone XL have been overly simplistic — without sufficient attention to the damage from higher greenhouse gas emissions associated with Canada’s oil sands and without a thorough examination of alternative pipeline routes around farmland and aquifers.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said the State Department’s studies so far also have given short shrift to the effect that the pipeline project — and the crude it would carry — would have on Gulf Coast communities, where the product would be refined.
For instance, he said, Port Arthur, Texas is “already overburdened by pollution from dirty refineries. Do we really need to add more pollution?”
All sides agree that the proposed pipeline would expand the marketplace for diluted bitumen and synthetic crudes produced from Alberta’s oil sands.
According some analyses, the greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian oil sands crude can be 40 percent more than those of conventional oil. Although oil companies are increasingly using less-invasive in situ techniques to extract the tar-like hydrocarbon bitumen from deeply buried oil sands, it has traditionally been removed through open pit mining.
Foes and supporters of the plan are set to square off during a series of public meetings on the project next month, including one at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 26 in Port Arthur, Texas, and another scheduled for 12 p.m. Sept. 28 in Austin.
See the full meeting schedule below:
Sounds like the pipeline would create thousands of good paying jobs, no wonder the liberals are against it.
Now show a picture of all the gasoline burning cars they took to get to their protest in the first place.
these people fit right in with the Obama crowd that wants to eliminate all US jobs and economy. time to put a stop to all this foolishness, pipelines DO NOT cause pollution, nor do they disrupt the water shed. typical of the environmental groups to question what they know nothing about.
How stupid can these people be? Stopping the pipeline only means that the oil will go to China instead of the US. The same or more polution will be created in the world and the only net result will be loss of good US jobs and hurting US GDP. Clearly, what is in the best interest of the US?
They should be encouraged to go on a two week hunger strike. God Bless Texas
Pressure from environmentalists, pressure from unions, pressure from oil companies, and pressure to create jobs. WHat to do, what to do
Ship it here – we love pollution! We’ll provide all the minimum wage jobs they need to build it, too. And if it ever leaks (come one, when is the last time there has been an oil spill?), we’ll supply the shore birds to soak it up. West Texas has it’s frac’d wells, Central Texas has its drought, North Texas has Dallas, now East Texas will have its own issue.
“whether to pollute areas like Port Arthur, Texas with more refineries,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth.
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Ah, this must be the greenie weenie’s jobs agenda. Fewer jobs and more expensive energy, making more people poor and making life just that much harder for them.
Can we get China to buy these folks off and then take them to China for some re-education?
Anything to keep the price of gas from coming down, eh?
Wonder how much pressure would be received from people wanting cheaper gasoline to drive to work, could dish out?
Some of those same enviroflakes scream the loudest when it costs them a hundred bux to tank up their SUV’s. So consider this: would it cost less to pipe the crude from Alberta to Port Arthur; to load it in trucks to transport it along the interstate highways or to load it onto tanker barges to send along the riverways (remember the ongong flooding this year of the Missouri and Mississippi)?
And if you attempt to answer ‘none of the above’, tell us what energy source you plan on using for the next several decades! Because we could all stand a good laugh.
Bob, China would execute them as being an anti-governmemt rabble.
Umm, creating a pipeline replaces thousands of trucks, and is far faster than ships. Sounds like a pretty green idea to me.
“Wonder how much pressure would be received from people wanting cheaper gasoline to drive to work, could dish out?”
They cant. They’re too busy working to be sitting around in front of the white house. That’s the sad thing, the voice of the majority of Americans will not be heard (again) as the fringe left makes all the noise – and seems to get all the grease.
Just ask Boehner who he listened to when he crafted the ‘best deal he could get’ spending INCREASE at a time when our country is operating in red ink.
Don’t forget the financial impact on small town and cities along the pipeline route. What do pipeliners do when they aren’t working? They like to eat and drink a lot of beer. That’s a stimulus plan :-)
Tell them all to go BUCK themselves. I’m sick of these nut jobs trying to control everything. If you want to be a sheltered nut job then go do it. The economy and life of this country is in trouble!. GET OUT OF THE WAY!
Rejecting the pipeline will do one thing and one thing only, send the oil to China and increase costs and pollution everyone for a feel-good amendment.
If we keep on relying on Canadian crude, they’re likely to have a Canuck Spring, eh?
Wonder where common sense went. Enviroterrorists is what they are. When they take up living in tents and walk or ride horses I’ll begin to take them seriously. In the meanwhile they are ignorant hypocrites. Let’s use oil from Canada *before* we use another drop of oil that funds the hate in the middle east. When there is no money there are no friends in the middle east. To HE*LL with the middle east!
Woow, it looks like they were able to get a WHOLE 30 PROTESTERS in that close-in shot!!!! I doubt seriously that the protestors could distinguish between the upgraded oil from the Atabasca tar sands of Northern Alberta and any other crude oil in any other pipeline. That’s because the tar is “cracked” into smaller chain hydrocarbons near where it is mined. The stuff that would come across the border in this new pipeline (similar to what’s already coming across in existing lines!!!) is fit for processing in US refineries. Blithering idiots.
“…to addressing global climate change and addressing this nation’s . . . dependence on dirty fossil fuels.”
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Yes, fossil fuel is dirty but it is necessary, no, VITAL to our lives.
I just don’t understand these people.
Are they part of that group that thinks bicycles should be the only method of transportation?
Port Arthur was ruined long ago. May as well dirty it up some more and leave the clean places intact.
Picture looks like a couple dozen fools protesting the US getting thousands of good paying jobs and a great source of oil from friends and not enemies…. I would be willing to bet that NONE of those fools protesting got to that site without using the evil hydrocarbons that they hate so much…. NONE of them walked and none of them can even get by for 1 day without using something that was made or powered by hydrocarbons…. Enviromentalists are crazy at best….
Come on Jennifer–having trouble getting articles published lately? Pressure–really? I think he and his handlers are focused on not getting trounced in the next election cycle rather than Keystone XL. Do these groups actually think that Tar Sands oil is not going to come south without this pipeline? It has been since the 1970s! Have you ever looked at an interstate pipeline map of the U.S.? Keystone is a capacity and transport safety issue. We are already railing lots of North Dakota Bakken oil south as there is no pipeline capacity. Waint until one of those derails in someone’s back yard. We are indeed our own worst enemy.
Hundreds of people, who apparently have no employment, crying about something or thousands of skilled positions plus an infusion of cheaper feedstock for the nations manufacturing sector…tough call.
Folks…the real news is how many jobs Americans should be filling, but are actually being filled by Canadians. That’s the real scandal, as all thinking Americans know we need to use Canadian oil. The part of the pipeline in America should be built, designed and operated by an American company who can partner with TransCanada. Mr Steffy of the Chronicle really needs to take a hard look at some of the hard facts asscociated with this foreign pipeline.