Keystone XL Pipeline and More Jobs Delayed Again

President Obama once again delayed approval of the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Clearly, this decision is based on giving more consideration to the objections of environmentalists than to the supporting arguments of the oil industry, which supplies much of the country's needed energy resources, provides jobs that are critical during a slow economy with high unemployment and, by importing oil from Canada, reduces US reliance on oil imports from countries not quite as friendly to US interests.

What are the environmentalists' concerns?

"There are a number of concerns. Extraction itself is very damaging. It rips up forest wilderness, hurts migratory birds, it causes much higher greenhouse gas emissions, and there are big problems from the huge toxic waste dams that they build. But in addition, when you build a pipeline to carry this more corrosive material, you also have a much higher risk of leaks. We don’t have adequate safety regulations to take care of it, especially when you have a pipeline over a water source like the Ogallala Aquifer, which serves over 2 million people in America’s heartland. You’re sort of asking for another disaster on the scale of the BP oil spill." Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, international program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council

The extraction concern addresses issues related to the place of extraction, which in this case is Canada, not the United States. The concern about the dangers of pipelines leaking and the lack of adequate regulation for such perceived dangers is contradicted by the wide range of federal government agencies involved in the pipeline review process.

The review process by the US State Department for the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which been taking place for more than three years, has involved input and analysis by numerous government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy, and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which oversees pipeline safety. There have been over 100 meetings and hearings in six states and Washington, DC providing the opportunity for public comments.

Significantly, the US Department of Transportation's PHMSA has an Office of Pipeline Safety that was established as "the Federal safety authority for ensuring the safe, reliable, and environmentally sound operation of the Nation's pipeline transportation system". The country already has over 50,000 miles of crude oil pipelines that must comply with PHMSA requirements.

What does the US Office of Pipeline Safety think about the risks posed by pipeline transportation of liquid fuel? Here's the OPS statement on its website about pipeline safety in general:

"Pipelines are the safest and most cost-effective means to transport the extraordinary volumes of natural gas and hazardous liquid products that fuel our economy. To move the volume of even a modest pipeline, it would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of seventy-five 2,000-barrel tank rail cars everyday. These alternatives would require many times the people, clog the air with engine pollutants, be prohibitively expensive and -- with many more vehicles on roads and rails carrying hazardous materials -- unacceptably dangerous.

Relative to the volumes of products transported, pipelines are extremely safe when compared to other modes of energy transportation. Oil pipeline spills amount to about 1 gallon per million barrel-miles (Association of Oil Pipelines). One barrel, transported one mile, equals one barrel-mile, and there are 42 gallons in a barrel. In household terms, this is less than one teaspoon of oil spilled per thousand barrel-miles.

Pipelines also generally have a better safety record (deaths, injuries, fires/explosions) than other modes of oil transportation. For example, compared to the pipeline record, there are 87 times more oil transport truck-related deaths, 35 times more oil transport truck related fires/explosions, and twice as many oil transport truck-related injuries." http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.ebdc7a8a7e39f2e55cf2031050248a0c/?vgnextoid=2c6924cc45ea4110VgnVCM1000009ed07898RCRD&vgnextchannel=f7280665b91ac010VgnVCM1000008049a8c0RCRD&vgnextfmt=print

Of even more significance with regard to the Keystone XL project is what the US State Department concluded after its rigorous review of more than three years. Here's the conclusion made before the President delayed final approval:

"In consultation with PHMSA, [the Department of State] determined that incorporation of the Special Conditions [specified in the report from State] would result in a Project that would have a degree of safety greater than any typically constructed domestic oil pipeline system under current regulations and a degree of safety along the entire length of the pipeline system that would be similar to that required in high consequence areas as defined in the regulations." Executive Summary: Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Keystone XL Project, United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, August 26, 2011

So after the State Department made the conclusion above in August 2011 (following more than three years' analysis of the project by the government's many agencies with expertise and experience in pipeline safety), how can President Obama say on January 18, 2012 that the TransCanada request for approval of the Keystone XL project must be denied due to "the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans [that] prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment"? More than three years of careful study by all the appropriate experts in government is "rushed"?

The President's attempt to blame Republicans for rushing his agencies to make a hasty decision that could impact the health and safety of the American people is bogus. This decision was not made in the national interest. The Keystone XL project would have created more than 20,000 construction jobs and more than 118,000 spin-off jobs for local businesses along the route at a time when the economy is struggling.

This decision was purely and crassly made in Obama's political interest to satisfy the environmental "special interest groups" pictured above whose support he needs during his re-election campaign. Sphere: Related Content