Wildlife Promise » Peter LaFontaine

New Englanders Invade DC to Stay Tar Sands Free

Peter LaFontaine — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:24:31 +0000

I’m from New Hampshire, which (unless you listen to Texans) is the greatest state in the Union — I grew up fishing for perch off the dock at Lake Winnipesaukee, catching frogs in the woods behind my house, and skiing in the White Mountains. Although we have a few cities, NH is mostly defined by its small towns and a pace of life that’s a far cry from Washington, DC, where I live now. Until recently, there wasn’t much overlap between my background and my work fighting dirty fuels like tar sands, but all that changed when the oil industry decided to try to sneak a tar sands pipeline project through NH, Maine and Vermont.

Mt. Wonalancet, NH, not far from the route of the Portland-Montreal Pipeline (photo: Chris Schoenboem)

We’ve talked about the Northeast pipeline quite a bit on this blog, but here’s the basic story: Right now, the 60+ year old Portland-Montreal Pipeline transports regular oil from the coast of Maine up to refineries in Canada. The company (which is majority-owned by Exxon) wants to reverse the flow of this line and change the product it carries — instead of oil, they want to transport over 12 million gallons per day of tar sands, the same poisonous, corrosive stuff that was at the heart of the pipeline disasters in Arkansas last month and in 2010 in Michigan. This plan obviously has people worried, and making matters worse is that the company, which doesn’t have a “formal” proposal yet, seems to believe it has all the federal approval it needs to turn on the pumps.

Fighting back against Big Oil

Fortunately, New Englanders aren’t known to let themselves get trampled on. Local conservation groups, public health experts and many others has been fighting back against Exxon, bringing widespread attention to the project — enough that we have the support of nearly the entire Congressional delegation from those three states (Senator Ayotte, we’re still waiting on ya). We even managed to get 1,500 people to a rally in Portland back in frigid January, the biggest gathering of any kind in 25 years. Suffice to say, New Englanders care, and we don’t want this dangerous substance pumped through our rivers and forests, threatening species like moose and black bears and contributing to climate change.

The problem is, the US State Department (which is tasked with overseeing the pipeline) doesn’t necessarily notice anything amiss and hasn’t the told the company it can’t proceed without a new permit. The State Department needs to make it clear: if Exxon wants to bring poisonous, climate-wrecking tar sands across Northern New England, the impacts are going to be given a hard look and approval is going to needed. It’s a common sense requirement, just making sure we know the threats and the particulars before giving the green light to Exxon, but State hasn’t gotten involved yet because the company hasn’t made a formal proposal.

And that’s the catch-22: unless the State Department tells them to formalize their plans, Exxon might never get around to filing the paperwork — and they’ve already told regional officials they don’t have to. They’re more than happy to act like the cartoon cat burping up feathers, shrugging its shoulders when you ask what happened to Tweety Bird. But this is real life, and New Englanders want to protect their region and wildlife from spills and climate change. All risk and no reward does not interest New Hampshire, or Vermont or Maine for that matter.

Mr. Smith (and a bunch more) goes to Washington

New England and DC — culture-wise — may sometimes feel like oil and water, but when actual oil and actual water are in the mix, it’s worth a trip to the nation’s capitol. On Monday, a group from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont came down to Washington, DC to tell their stories to State Department officials in person. It wasn’t your usual DC lobby trip: Fishermen, retired oil industry lawyers, and a handful of conservationists all made the rounds of Capitol Hill, meeting with agencies and Congressional offices with a simple request: Can someone PLEASE make sure this tar sands plan is carefully reviewed?

Our hometown lobby team at the State Department (photo: Peter LaFontaine/NWF)

To their credit, State sent their A-team to meet with us, including Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones, who’s also been in charge of State’s Keystone XL analysis and is also a former resident of Maine. We showed how the pieces stack up to make it clear that the Northeast project was moving forward. Lisa Pohlmann, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, talked about the pipeline’s zigzag route across the Crooked River, and Eliot Stanley of the Sebago Lake Anglers Association told how a spill would devastate fishing in the region. Denis Rydjeski, a Dartmouth College professor, drew the connections between the Portland-Montreal Pipeline and another Exxon holding: the Pegasus pipeline that caused havoc in Mayflower, Arkansas earlier this spring. His sister lives not far from Mayflower, and it brought home the fact that disasters aren’t something that just happen to “other people.”

Pushing toxic, spill-prone tar sands through Exxon’s pipeline across Maine is an all-risk, no-reward proposition. The health of Maine people, our economy, and our way of life, depend on clean water for drinking, tourism, our fishing industry, and recreation. - Lisa Pohlmann, Natural Resources Council of Maine

We plan to keep the heat on Exxon and the State Department, and our group also got a chance to sit down with (deep breath…) the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, to talk about updating our nation’s safety standards for tar sands projects like the Northeast pipeline and Keystone XL. After Mayflower — and Kalamazoo, before that — we can’t trust the industry to operate safely, or even to tell us what they have planned for our back yards.

It can be hard to tell with federal agencies, but I think State got the message.

Tell the US State Department to protect New England’s wildlife and communities from this dangerous and polluting project. Say “NO!” to the Portland-Montreal tar sands pipeline.

BREAKING: Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Accident in Minnesota

Peter LaFontaine — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 23:06:25 +0000

Well, that didn’t take long: Just weeks after ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of sludge and wreaked havoc in Arkansas, an Enbridge pipeline has sprung a leak near Viking, Minnesota.

Fortunately for Viking residents and the area’s wildlife, it appears that this accident was contained before it became a full-blown disaster like the one in Arkansas: even so, around 600 gallons of oil are estimated to have contaminated the area. The line that burst goes by the boring-by-design name “Line 2,” but the adjoining “Alberta Clipper” pipeline is also a crucial element of this story. DeSmogBlog has more:

The Viking pump station also receives oil from the Alberta Clipper (aka Line 67 pipeline) that carries heavy crude oil and tar sands bitumen from the Alberta tar sands region south from Hardisty to Superior, Wisconsin and refineries in the midwestern United States. It is unclear whether the product that spilled was tar sands-derived diluted bitumen.

Animal rehabilitation workers clean oil from a goose’s wings after the 2010 Enbridge spill (Photo: US Fish & Wildlife Service/MI DNRE)

>>>Speak up for wildlife threatened by oil spills in the Great Lakes<<<

The Alberta Clipper is already enormous — carrying nearly 20 million gallons daily to Midwest refineries — but it’s currently under review for a truly giant expansion that would double its capacity and make it the biggest tar sands pipeline in the United States. That’s right — bigger than Keystone 1, Keystone XL, or the Northeast pipeline, capable of pumping 37 million gallons of tar sands oil every day through the Great Lakes region.

You may be asking yourself, “Enbridge, huh? Why is that name so familiar?” Let’s just say this isn’t the company’s first brush with fame: while producing our report Importing Disaster, we discovered that Enbridge was responsible for more than 800 spills in the US and Canada between 1999 and 2010, totaling almost seven million gallons of oil. The biggest of these, of course, was the Kalamazoo River disaster in 2010, when a pipeline linked to the Alberta Clipper burst and sent over a million gallons of tar sands coursing through the community of Marshall, Michigan. That cleanup effort has taken almost three years and nearly a billion dollars, but the Environmental Protection Agency says that it’s still not finished and recently told Enbridge to get back to work to dredge more oil out of the river.

As NWF’s Beth Wallace has detailed, Enbridge isn’t particularly interested in improving its safety record:

Rather than focus on safety and cleanup, Enbridge is recklessly moving ahead with plans to expand their pipeline network in the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, and to double down on high carbon fuel that is proving nearly impossible to clean from Michigan’s waters.

With this latest leak on their resume, it’s fair to ask what more the company can do to earn anything but a slap on the wrist. A good first step would be for the US State Department (the agency in charge of the Alberta Clipper permit) to broaden their study to Enbridge’s entire Great Lakes pipeline system, because expanding Alberta Clipper means that whole system will be exposed to a massive increase in oil volumes — and with it, an even higher chance of disaster.

Hundreds of species were imperiled the last time an Enbridge pipeline burst in the Great Lakes, and we can’t afford a repeat. Speak up for wildlife threatened by Enbridge’s Midwest expansion plans — tell the State Department to stop Alberta Clipper!

Learn more about the Enbridge pipeline boom at NWF.org.

Congress Joins the Chorus of Boos Against Keystone XL

Peter LaFontaine — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:39:31 +0000

It’s been a bad week for the tar sands industry, with protests against the Keystone XL pipeline coming to a boil as the window for public input closes. Joining the growing chorus, thirty-six members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to the State Department and urged the agency to take a harder look at the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Calling State’s review “inadequate,” the signers go on to say that it

fails to reflect the full environmental impacts of the proposed pipeline. We strongly encourage the State Department to reevaluate the SEIS and its assessment of the proposed pipeline’s impacts on climate change, our natural resources, our economy, and low-income and minority communities.

This is no surprise to anyone who follows this blog (I know you’re out there) and it echoes official comments from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released yesterday, that cast serious doubt on the State Department’s analysis and the future of the project. EPA concluded that State had failed to meaningfully consider multiple factors, foremost among them the climate impacts and spill risks posed by the 1,700 mile tar sands pipeline.

It’s hard to ignore 50,000 protesters in your front yard — and dozens of members of Congress were obviously paying attention (Photo: Josh Lopez/350.org)

Both EPA and Congress were skeptical about State’s claim that Keystone XL would not drive more development and tar sands production in Canada, which is the biggest factor in determining what the ultimate carbon emissions will be. Market analysts and corporate leaders agree that KXL is the linchpin for the industry’s future, but the State Department has relied on incomplete and outdated information about alternative options like rail or other pipelines.

>>>Read the full letter from Congress here

A Million Voices Against KXL

It’s not just agencies and members of Congress who think the tar sands pipeline is a bad idea. Capping off the outpouring of opposition, National Wildlife Federation and other groups just delivered over a million comments from the public, telling the Obama Administration “reject the pipeline!” NWF’s Robyn Carmichael has more — and as she puts it, the comments “came from Americans from all across the country and all walks of life, but they carried one common message: that this risky and unnecessary project puts our wildlife, water, land, and communities in jeopardy.”

Thank you to the tens of thousands of NWF members (and many others) who have spoken up for people and wildlife during this rollercoaster campaign. The public comment period for the environmental review is over, but there will be more opportunities to help so stay tuned!

Your donations make a big difference in our efforts to protect wildlife from habitat loss and the effects of global warming.

To learn more about Keystone XL and how you can help, visit NWF.org/tarsands

EPA Slams Keystone XL Review

Peter LaFontaine — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:29:25 +0000

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking its mandate seriously, if its new comments on the Keystone XL pipeline are any indication. In an official letter submitted Monday afternoon, EPA called the environmental review of the tar sands megaproject “insufficient” (in agency-speak that means “this doesn’t cut it”) and recommended major revisions to the State Department’s analysis, including greater consideration of oil spill risks, alternate routes, and threats to water resources like the Ogallala Aquifer. And in the biggest eye-opener of all, EPA challenged State’s assumption that tar sands will be developed regardless of the outcome for Keystone XL — which could fundamentally change the equation for how they weigh climate impacts.

Coming on Earth Day, it’s welcome news that the agency is trying to protect Americans and wildlife from a huge mistake.

A blue heron covered in tar sands oil from the Kalamazoo River pipeline disaster (Photo: Michigan DEQ)

EPA’s comments validate what we’ve been saying all along: that this dangerous project was rushed from the start, without a thorough analysisof its impacts on the environment or public health. Tar sands and Keystone XL pose an enormous threat to our global climate and to communities from Alberta to Texas and everywhere in between, but the oil industry and its allies in Congress would have us turn a blind eye to the real dangers that Keystone XL represents.

This isn’t a new position for EPA — at several key points during the Keystone XL saga, officials have made it clear that their colleagues at the State Department need to go back to the drawing board. Partly, this is due to the fact that State isn’t used to leading big environmental studies; it’s only a quirk of the system that put them in charge of Keystone. But with a decision this important, with so much riding on a thorough analysis, we can’t afford growing pains.

Americans speak out

In addition to the environmental review, the government is also conducting something called a “National Interest Determination,” which will help decide whether or not Keystone is a good idea, based not just on environmental factors but also on things like diplomacy, energy security, and jobs (or lack thereof). Americans are already letting the White House know what they think: on Tuesday, a coalition of conservation groups, indigenous peoples, public health advocates and landowners along the pipeline route will deliver over a million comments from the public opposing construction of this risky project.

As NWF’s Jim Murphy put it in the Los Angeles Times:

“The Environmental Protection Agency’s letter shows that despite multiple tries, the State Department is incapable of doing a proper analysis of the climate, wildlife, clean water, safety and other impacts of this disastrous and unneeded project. President Obama has more than enough information to determine the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in America’s national interest and he should reject it.”

President Obama gets to make the ultimate decision, but John Kerry (the U.S. Secretary of State) is a long-time champion against climate change, and could still sway his agency’s ultimate recognition. A million anti-Keystone comments, plus a timely assist from EPA, could tilt the balance in our favor.

Your donations make a big difference in our efforts to protect wildlife from habitat loss and the effects of global warming.

To learn more about Keystone XL and how you can help, visit NWF.org/tarsands

Big Oil vs. Big Birds – Who Will Win?

Peter LaFontaine — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:41:27 +0000

On Thursday, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will be front and center in Grand Island, Nebraska, when the US State Department holds its lone public hearing on the immensely controversial project. The location couldn’t be more emblematic of what’s at risk — Grand Island is one of the world’s most important places for migratory birds, a crucial stopover for half a million Sandhill Cranes and endangered Whooping Cranes as they wing their way across the continent to summer nesting grounds in Canada. A stone’s throw from the Platte River, the town’s economy is bolstered by thousands of bird watchers who come to witness the spectacle each year.

Endangered Whooping Cranes – like this adult with its chick – are one of many species threatened by tar sands pipelines. (US Fish & Wildlife Service)

Keystone XL would jeopardize all of that. A tar sands spill — like the recent pipeline ruptures in Mayflower, Arkansas and Marshall, Michigan– could send an unprecedented amount of sticky, poisonous tar sands into the river and wetlands that support the cranes, as well as endangering the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies drinking water to millions of Americans.

National Wildlife Federation board member David Carruth, an Arkansas resident who has spent the last few weeks assisting in the response to the disastrous Pegasus pipeline spill, will be speaking at a press conference to highlight the dangers of tar sands for wildlife and public health. And David, along with Nebraska Wildlife Federation president Duane Hovorka, will testify at the hearing. adding their voices to the hundreds of attendees telling the State Department to deny the pipeline.

You can watch a live stream of the event here, and I’ll be back with a recap of the hearing later this week so stay tuned. If you haven’t already sent a message to the White House, NOW IS THE TIME! The public comment period closes on Monday, April 22 so tell the President and Secretary Kerry “NO KXL!”

Speak up for people and wildlife at risk from tar sands — Tell the White House to say NO! to Keystone XL.

Keystone XL – The Linchpin for Future Tar Sands Growth

Peter LaFontaine — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:49:46 +0000

There’s a reason it’s called the “Keystone” pipeline — the multibillion dollar project is the tar sands industry’s best hope for a dramatic expansion, and without it the rest of their plans start to collapse.

Companies like Suncor need coastal access in order to grow their operations — and they’re banking on KXL to get them there. (Photo: Suncor)

As I covered in a post earlier this month, the U.S. State Department released its draft environmental review of Keystone XL to a storm of controversy. State concluded, wrongly, that the tar sands region will be developed regardless of whether or not this pipeline is built, which has huge implications for how they judged the project’s climate impacts. While it is true that some tar sands oil can be moved by alternative means such as rail cars, the most economical method – by far – is pipeline transport, and the industry is counting on multiple new or expanded pipelines to carry its product to refineries, where it can be processed and shipped overseas.

Far from being inevitable, the development of land-locked Canadian tar sands is almost entirely dependent on selling oil beyond North America. As the industry has repeatedly stated, without major infrastructure like Keystone XL giving this product access to world markets, the fragile economics propping up tar sands extraction will begin to crumble. In fact, RBC Dominion Securities recently warned that without Keystone XL, tar sands production growth could be reduced by almost 19 million gallons per day by 2017.

We are already seeing diminished capital investment in the Alberta oil patch due to the high level of uncertainty over the White House’s Keystone XL permitting decision, proving that this particular project is a linchpin for the industry. Other major pipeline proposals face significant legal and political obstacles in Canada, and appear increasingly likely to be stalled indefinitely. Moreover, Keystone is the largest proposal to date, and by itself would support an increase in tar sands production by 36 percent, which makes it a significant driver of climate change even if no other projects move forward.

Here’s what the industry and other experts have to say:

Western Canada’s oil industry faces a serious challenge to its long-term growth. Production growth will become constrained unless more pipeline capacity is built to access new markets.

TD Economics, Special Report – December 17, 2012

If we can’t attract world prices, then we will ultimately curb energy development.

Al Monaco, Enbridge, Inc. CEO – March 7, 2013

We’ve seen a lot of companies based out of Alberta making (spending) decisions that are quite different in the last half of (2012) compared to what they were in the first half of the year…We can no longer continue to rely on oil and gas for 30 per cent of our revenue. It’s a fundamental change.

Alison Redford, Alberta Premier – January 25, 2013

Oil sands projects display some of the highest break-evens of all global upstream projects. The potential for wide and volatile differentials could result in operators delaying or cancelling unsanctioned projects.

Wood Mackenzie, International Energy Research Firm – June 2012

“There’s a lot of that oil out there in the market. There’s plenty of capacity in the Pacific Rim/Asian markets for heavy oil like ours, but it’s not infinite and it’s certainly competitive.” And “If we can get our products into the market in that stream we’re going to be competitive…The equivalent of being late is you have to take a bigger and bigger discount on your product, or switch and start supplying a more higher valued-added product.”

Michal Moore, Professor of Energy Economics at the University of Calgary – February 7, 2013

Access to this crucial [Asian Pacific Basin] market will depend critically on the outcome of the pipeline approval process, and also the cost to ship from Canada. If Canada does not approve of the Pacific coast pipeline expansions, or takes too long in doing so, it could find its crude unable to effectively penetrate the world’s most promising oil export market.

David Hackett, et al., University of Calgary School of Public Policy, “Pacific Basin Heavy Oil Refining Capacity” – February 2013

If you look at the volume projection going out to 2020, you start saying Northern Gateway’s not going to happen, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain will be delayed.

Michael Formuziewich, Portfolio Manager at Leon Frazer & Associates – February 7, 2013

Pipeline capacity out of Western Canada is adequate for the short term, but substantial progress must be made on this front in 2013. Progress, or lack thereof, will have a big impact on sentiment towards Canadian oil producers. We estimate that pipeline capacity out of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin could effectively be full in the 2014 time frame, suggesting little room for error/politicking in bringing on new pipeline capacity.

Andrew Potter, CIBC oil and gas equity analyst – December 17, 2012

KXL is likely, therefore, to be moving Canadian bitumen before any of the other major pipeline projects considered in this report. In fact, with KXL in place and operating at capacity, bitumen production could increase substantially and have a major effect on the overall supply/demand situation throughout the North American continent.

Canadian Energy Research Institute – July 2012

Growing conventional oil, including tight oil, and oil sands production has created an urgent need for additional transportation infrastructure. New pipelines, expansions to existing infrastructure and increased transportation by rail are all required to meet this need for capacity. Pipelines continue to be the dominant mode of transportation for crude oil but it takes time for pipeline infrastructure to be built or expanded.

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – June 5, 2012

Unless we get increased [market] access, like with Keystone XL, we’re going to be stuck…We’re heading into the same situation with crude oil as we did with natural gas, in that we’re going to hit a wall at some point in time and our production is going to be the one backed out of the system, like natural gas has been backed out of the U.S. system. I think it will have a dramatic impact.

Ralph Glass, Vice-president, AJM Petroleum Consultants – June 8, 2011

If there was something that kept me up at night, it would be the fear that before too long we’re going to be landlocked in bitumen. We’re not going to be an energy superpower if we can’t get the oil out of Alberta.

Ron Liepert, former Alberta Energy Minister – June 8, 2011

It’s fair to say that development has already slowed because of the [price difference between Canadian oil and other benchmarks]. Companies are certainly going to wait and see what the decision on Keystone is before moving ahead with development.

Robert Schultz, Professor of Business at the University of Calgary – March 7, 2013

If President Obama approves Keystone XL, Americans would get all of the risk of a pipeline without any benefits to energy security or gas prices — not to mention the project’s serious implications for climate change and wildlife in Canada and the US. Tell the White House to say NO! to this dangerous and dirty project.

Speak up for wildlife like Woodland Caribou — tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL.

Keystone XL: Exports, Not Energy Security

Peter LaFontaine — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:17:25 +0000

Keystone XL, the tar sands mega-project, is a potent symbol of the climate crisis and our global addiction to fossil fuels. It is also — first and foremost — an export pipeline designed to send tar sands oil from Canada through the United States to the Gulf Coast, where it will be refined and shipped overseas. Canadian politicians and industry executives have made no secret of this fact, but Big Oil’s friends in Congress continue to insist that the project will benefit Americans, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Port of Houston — the endpoint of the Keystone XL pipeline — is a major diesel export center (Photo: Louis Vest)

By falsely equating Canadian tar sands with energy security, Keystone’s backers are ignoring basic economics and geography. Texas’ Gulf refineries are gearing up for an influx of tar sands oil, which they intend to sell wherever the price is highest – Asia, Europe, South America – and with no obligation to reserve this fuel for American consumers.

Sometimes it’s easiest to let the opposition speak for themselves, so here’s what our “friendly neighbors to the north” really hope to gain from their pipeline:

I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that.

Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister – February 10, 2012

Well, not all of it’s going to be exported.

Lee Terry, U.S. Congressman – February 7, 2013

For Alberta, the strategic imperative is that we get our products to the ocean, so that we secure global prices for our products. The solutions are additional pipelines to the West Coast, to the East Coast, to the Gulf Coast, and also train-car delivery of bitumen and oil products to the coast.

Ken Hughes, Alberta Energy Minister – January 3, 2013

We have a duty to ensure that our resources, especially Alberta oil and gas, get to new markets at a much fairer price. We absolutely must find ways to get Alberta oil to multiple customers around the world and get a competitive price.

Alison Redford, Alberta Premier – January 24, 2013

Any effort to restrict market forces on commodities like oil and natural gas is a North Korean style model of economics and has no place here in America. Having the flexibility to export more should there be an occasional surplus of supply would go a long way to help reduce our trade deficit.

John Felmy, American Petroleum Institute Chief Economist – February 3, 2012

Long term, our strategy has always been to get Canadian heavy crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Bill Klesse, Valero CEO and Chairman (Valero is a major refiner contracting for Keystone XL) – March 10, 2011

“Main products [of Valero’s Port Arthur, TX hydrocracker project] are high-quality diesel and jet fuel for growing global demand for middle distillates” and it is “Located at large, Gulf coast refinery to leverage existing operations and export logistics.”

Protesters march on the National Mall during February’s “Forward on Climate” rally (Photo: 350.org)

Valero investor report slideshow – September 15, 2012

Is it all going to be used in the U.S. by U.S. consumers? No. Most of it will be, but it will be available for export.

Charles Drevna, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers President – January 31, 2012

“No, I can’t do that.”

Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada’s President for Energy and Oil Pipelines (Response to Rep. Ed Markey’s question of whether he would support an export ban on Keystone XL’s refined products.)– December 2, 2011

Shippers on the Keystone XL Pipeline have contracted for access to the [US Gulf Coast] market for their oil sands production and refining needs. Not only will this directly benefit these shippers, it will also provide a benefit to all [Western Canadian] heavy crude producers by increasing the price they receive for their crude, as well as providing significant pipeline capacity to an alternative market.^{^[x]}

Purvin & Getz, Inc. study performed for TransCanada – 2009

Speak up for wildlife like Woodland Caribou — tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL.

Keystone XL Review Fails the Climate Test

Peter LaFontaine — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 22:15:41 +0000

By now, even TransCanada’s CEO must be sick of the words “Keystone XL.” The biggest environmental story of the year was the company’s enormous tar sands pipeline, and the backlash against it — a movement built around a simple idea: If this project is built, we can kiss a stable climate goodbye. Now the fight enters its final stage with today’s State Department release of the “Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” (SEIS), the official government review of Keystone XL, and the early analysis looks pretty bleak.

Tar sands refining complex in Alberta, Canada (Photo: Kris Krug)

A while back we wrote about what to expect from the report. Now that it’s been released, here’s what you need to know:

The Supplemental EIS is mostly bad news. Few of the things we hoped would be included — such as climate impacts and threats to endangered wildlife like whooping cranes and woodland caribou — were seriously examined.
Remember all of those problems with tar sands pipeline spills? Apparently the State Department decided they weren’t worth paying much attention to, even after the biggest inland spill in U.S. history, spill risks aren’t adequately addressed in the SEIS.
Once again, Tribal communities are being left out of the conversation. The federal government is required to “meaningfully consult” with tribes on issues that affect them, but the SEIS ignores the concerns of Native American groups despite widespread opposition to the project.
Legal experts believe the State Department should have re-evaluated the entire project in light of new information that’s come up over the last year. For example, back when KXL was proposed, the US wasn’t producing nearly as much domestic oil as it is now. When the point of a review is to evaluate “purpose and need,” you would think they would actually evaluate whether we need it.
In a rare bit of good news, the SEIS acknowledged that tar sands oil is fundamentally different from conventional oil.

President Obama visited Iowa last August during the region-wide drought that decimated crops and cost U.S. taxpayers around $20 billion. Climate change, driven by use of fossil fuels like tar sands, is causing extreme weather events around the globe. (Photo: USDA)

Where Does That Leave Us on Climate?

There are lots of problems to pick apart here, but let’s tackle the big one: climate change. President Obama has cast himself as the leader who will bring us back from the edge of planetary catastrophe, which makes this Keystone report even more baffling. The pipeline alone is bad enough (the greenhouse gas equivalent of 4.6 million cars) and we know that if it’s built, it will drive more tar sands mining. Crazily, the State Department is figuring that Keystone XL would just be one of many pipelines coming out of Canada in the next few years, and therefore can’t be held responsible for the resulting climate catastrophe. But in fact, Keystone is the linchpin for future development in the tar sands region. Mostly as a result of the campaign against Keystone, we’re already seeing that oil companies are slowing investments in the tar sands — the self-fulfilling prophecy of “more development –> more US oil imports” is being proven wrong in real time.

And if Obama rejects the project, it makes it that much harder, politically and economically, for the next company to build a pipeline through the U.S.; precedent will have been set. In other words, the State Department has fundamentally ignored its own role in how this scenario plays out. If they allow pipelines to get permits, the tar sands will be developed. If they reject the permits, the oil industry will really struggle to get its dirty product out of Canada. Just take a look at the cage match they’re fighting over the “Northern Gateway” pipeline, the Canadian equivalent of Keystone XL, which is going nowhere fast, thanks to steadfast opposition from First Nations (tribal) groups and tens of thousands of other citizens north of the border.

According to Jim Lyon, NWF’s vice president for conservation:

If Keystone XL wouldn’t speed tar sands development, why are oil companies pouring millions into lobbying and political contributions to build it? By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, President Obama can keep billions of tons of climate-killing carbon pollution locked safely in the ground.

NWF will be coming out soon with a more detailed analysis of the report, but right now we’re incredibly disappointed with what the State Department has put forward. Fortunately, we still have a chance to make our voices heard — there will be a 45-day public comment period, and you’d better believe we’re going to get loud. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this decision is ultimately President Obama’s to make, and we need him to stop the madness now. Keystone XL would take our climate to the point of no return. If he cares about his legacy, his kids, wildlife, or the billions of people around the world who are facing the looming specter of climate change, he has to say NO to this pipeline. There is no other option.

Speak up for people and wildlife! Tell President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and protect our planet.

Will Obama Go Back to 1984 on Keystone XL?

Peter LaFontaine — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 15:19:34 +0000

With the clock ticking down toward midnight on President Obama’s Keystone XL decision, one of the planet’s top climate officials is calling it big, BIG news — enough that a rejection could propel action on global climate efforts:

“I think that would be an extremely strong signal [that Obama is serious about climate change action],” European Union climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, said during a briefing with reporters in Washington. “That would be a strong signal to the world.”

Hedegaard’s remarks made it clear that a yes or no will have implications far beyond our borders — the United States wields a tremendous amount of influence over future efforts to reduce greenhouse gases, and Keystone XL is the biggest climate test the White House has faced in years.

Photo: TarSandsAction

She knows, better than most, the pressure Obama is under. The Canadian government, working in concert with the tar sands industry, has mounted an intense lobbying effort to convince the European Union to relax its clean fuel standards (as part of its overall strategy to put a smiley face on the tar sands brand). The E.U.’s decision is expected in the spring, but Canada’s back-room dealings have done nothing for the country’s crumbling image as an environmental leader. And Canada’s Ambassador to the United States has spent far too much of his time recently twisting arms down in Washington, D.C., telling anyone who will listen that Keystone XL would bring “peace and prosperity” instead of pollution.

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

Even without the spectacle of Canadian diplomats bending over backwards to drag the planet into the dark days of “1984,” George Orwell could have written a novel on Prime Minister Steven Harper’s machinations. In recent months, Harper has withdrawn Canada from the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, slashed funding for scientific agencies and muzzled government scientists, all while promoting tar sands as a healthy addition to the world’s energy mix. And the Premier of Alberta, Alison Redford, left jaws dropped across the continent this week when she proudly described Keystone XL as “responsible energy development” despite her province’s skyrocketing emissions and record of environmental destruction.

NWF’s friends at Environmental Defense Canada issued a scathing breakdown of their government’s credibility gap, including this shocker:

Canada ranks among the worst performers in the developed world on climate change. In the most recent ranking of climate change performance, Canada was trailed only by Kazakhstan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, ranking 58th out of 61 countries.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Harper calls tar sands “ethical oil.” Up is down, black is green, oil is ethical, the planet is not in danger.

State Department’s Keystone XL review expected soon

Protesters at February 17th “Forward On Climate” rally in Washington D.C. (photo: 350.org)

The Washington rumor mill is predicting that the State Department (the agency tasked with analyzing the pipeline’s impacts) will issue its review soon, perhaps as early as today, and many crucial questions still loom: has State taken a hard look at the project’s climate implications? Were Tribal nations’ concerns given the attention they deserved? What are the real dangers to the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska? Did the agency just dress up their old review with some shiny new bangles, or did they actually factor in the new information that we’ve uncovered in the last year?

With climate champion and former Senator John Kerry in the top spot at the State Department, we hope that the answers to those questions are good news. But ultimately, the decision is President Obama’s to make, and he’ll have to pick whether to stand with the oil industry or with the millions of Americans who have spoken out in defense of our planet. As TIME’s Michael Grunwald puts it, “Now is the time to choose sides…There are many climate problems a President can’t solve, but Keystone isn’t one of them. It’s a choice between Big Oil and a more sustainable planet. The right answer isn’t always somewhere in the middle.”

Speak up for people and wildlife! Tell President Obama to say “NO!” to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

TransCanada’s Shocking Climate Claim

Peter LaFontaine — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:09:12 +0000

The company behind the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has spouted a lot of lies in defense of its super-polluting project, but the latest is a doozy. TransCanada’s president for pipelines and energy, Alex Pourbaix, is now claiming that KXL simply doesn’t matter from a climate perspective. Here’s what he had to say earlier this week:

“Our opponents are trying to make this debate about [greenhouse gases]…You could shut down oilsands production tomorrow and it would have absolutely no measurable impact on climate change.”

2 trillion barrels of carbon-free oil?! No problem, according to industry spokesman Alex Pourbaix. (Photo: Kris Krug)

/record screeches to a halt

AHAHAHA! Oh, I’m sorry, I thought he just said that Keystone — a massive commitment to the dirtiest fuel on the planet — would have no impact on climate change. That would be ludicrous, of course, so of course he must have misspoken…wait, what’s that? There’s more?

“The oilsands and their greenhouse gas emissions impact have been overstated.”

Hmm…guess not.

Rule #1: Look Who’s Talking

Let’s step back for a minute and consider the tiny little issue of credibility. On the one hand: Alex Pourbaix, millionaire oil executive and spokesman for a company whose stock price is desperately linked to Keystone XL. On the other hand: Science.

For argument’s sake let’s say that Mr. Pourbaix is right, and that we can magically burn 2 trillion barrels of tar sands without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Even then, we’re still left with a 2,000 mile long, leak-prone pipeline cutting across some of our country’s best farmland. We’re still left with an oil industry that has carved up Alberta’s boreal forest — and tens of thousands of acres of critical habitat for wolves, caribou, and migratory birds — like some post-apocalyptic nightmare. And we still have ever-rising prices at the pump, because committing to tar sands means we won’t invest in clean energy nearly as much as we need to.

But, unfortunately for TransCanada, that climate-neutral scenario is a load of [insert colorful euphemism for "bologna"] that doesn’t stand up to the most basic scrutiny, which is why the nation’s leading climate scientists sent President Obama a letter earlier this year urging him to deny the permit for Keystone XL:

Eighteen months ago some of us wrote you about the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, explaining why in our opinion its construction ran counter to both national and planetary interests. Nothing that has happened since has changed that evaluation; indeed, the year of review that you asked for on the project made it clear exactly how pressing the climate issue really is.

Conservationists, Tribal leaders, and thousands of others packed the National Mall to protest the Keystone XL pipeline on Feb. 17 (photo: 350.org)

(If you’re interested in the technical details, my colleague at NRDC, Anthony Swift, recently put together a great paper explaining just how much Keystone XL would drive the future development of tar sandsand global climate change.)

It’s clear that TransCanada is spooked. They’ve spent the last few years assuring investors that their project will get built, despite an anti-tar sands movement that gets louder by the week. I marched on the White House with 40,000 other Americans last weekend, calling on President Obama to fulfill his promise and take strong action on climate, which means saying “NO!” to Keystone. He knows he has a decision to make, and it’s awfully hard to ignore the moral argument against tar sands when the facts are so clearly aligned. Or at least, the facts according to science. TransCanada might want to crack open a textbook and reacquaint themselves with reality.

Tell President Obama to stand up for people and wildlife! Say NO to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.