State Department has approved the #Keystone XL pipeline plan as being environmentally sound

[karynnj]

9. Agree completely

The question is whether that premise can be challenged. I was afraid that this is what they would do as it was what many proponents were saying.The problem that the researchers faced is that their assessment is that the project would have the same scope even if the pipeline were denied. This meant that they could make that assumption that with or without the pipeline, the same quantity of tar sands oil would be produced and used somewhere in the world. But, even with that assumption, it does not go as far as the proponents who makethe same assumption and then argued that the alternative was worse for the environment.

Even if you accept that this is the right way to look at it - assuming we can not control the Canadian company and being concerned with the INTERNATIONAL not NATIONAL impact, this STILL makes a very weak case that it will be just slightly worse than not doing it. One possible flaw is that they negated the risk of a spill IN THE US by saying there could be a spill in Canada or at sea. However, it might be that a spill at the port in Canada would greatly impact not just Canada, but much of the Northwest coast. One tangentially environmental issue is that this is a private company that will get all the profits from this oil, less whatever taxes Canada gets from them. Is there any payment to the US for the transport? (I assume that they will buy the right of way, but the risk is not just to the land directly under the pipeline. ) In addition, given that they get the lion's share of the profit, do they REALLY incur most of the risk? As a company, they can declare bankruptcy of the COMPANY, but not the executives or large investors, if there is a catastrophic spill.

Given that a realistic estimate of having just one major break in the pipe turns a "whatever" case (under the assumptions most favorable to it) to a negative case, one way to force inclusion of that risk in the pipeline company's cost benefit analysis is to require the pipeline company buy specified insurance to cover spills. (good NPR article on the Michigan spill - http://www.npr.org/2012/08/16/158025375/when-this-oil-spills-its-a-whole-new-monster ) To require insurance to handle n spills as big as the one in Michigan - that is taking years and more money than expected to clean up - as a condition for the pipeline seems reasonable. They need to preclude "self insuring" which would likely lead to the US/state/town having to foot the likely inevitable bill. My hope is that an insurance requirement could change the profitability -- leading to them abandoning the project.

I wonder whether the State Department can hold a hearing on this or whether the SFRC must do so. At this point, it is not even clear if SOS Kerry has even read the draft. I know that there is thought that the Kerry/Obama sign off is a done deal, but I think that this report "damns with (even less) than faint praise. In essence, it says that this project will create very few jobs, will make an admittedly dirtier than regular crude oil more available. How is this something that anyone not associated with the company thinks is a good idea?

One problem that Kerry and, even more, Obama has is that he already okay'd the building of the southern part of the pipeline. This may be part of what boxed in the researchers. In doing that, Obama kind of gave away the ability to challenge the entire idea of whether facilitating the dirty oil is acceptable. It leaves only the special environmental concerns that had stopped the northern part and reduces things to specific endangered areas - and they have rerouted the pipeline. This leads me to conclude that BLM is very likely correct that Clinton/Obama have already tacitly given away the ability to stop the pipeline. To do so after allowing the southern part to be built and demanding they determine an accept alternative route for the Northern portion would seem almost dishonest if they were really against the entire thing. It would seem that unless Kerry/Obama could defend something as being a previously not known negative, denying the pipeline would seem almost a breech of faith as Obama essentially encouraged the company to spend the money on additional studies and actually building the pipeline. Al in all, this stinks to high heavens.