WASHINGTON — Following the State Department’s release of a highly anticipated final environmental assessment on the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, environmentalists have undertaken a renewed process of organizing opposition to the project.
The report marks a significant milestone in the potential approval of the Keystone project, but critics say it failed to highlight the full environmental impact of a pipeline that green groups argue would lead to a climate catastrophe.
“All across America, people are gathering to draw attention to the threat that the Keystone XL pipeline poses to clean air, clean water, public health, and the stability of our climate,” Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, a conservation group that has filed a lawsuit alleging impropriety around the State Department analysis, wrote Tuesday.
“This outpouring of hope and frustration came together in just a few days, in response to the release of a deeply flawed report by the State Department that underestimates the consequences of building this pipeline across the heart of the United States.”
Critics have reportedly begun inundating State Department phone lines with calls, urging Secretary of State John Kerry, a strong past proponent of climate action, to review the new report. Under current regulation, Kerry has the power to require such a review, and State Department officials have suggested that he began reading the 2,000-page analysis on Monday.
The focus on Kerry is the first in a series of potential choke points that environmentalists and others have identified in the remaining process ahead of any final decision by President Barack Obama. On Monday and Tuesday, some 300 anti-Keystone “vigils” took place in 49 states around the country. In part, these were facilitated by a new progressive digital platform called the Action Network, sponsored by the Corporate Action Network, an advocacy group.
“The Action Network was built to help harness grassroots energy, and clearly there’s something happening around Keystone XL at the grassroots level that is profound and widespread,” Brian Young, the president of the Action Network, told MintPress. “We’re thrilled that were able to provide the flexible online infrastructure to help people to make their voices heard loud and clear.”
Newly organized opposition has also come from Native American tribes and members. In the aftermath of the State Department report, tribes in a half-dozen states and parts of Canada are coming together to express solidarity with communities that would be impacted by the pipeline. While the project would not cross any formal tribal lands, some say it would come extremely close to sovereign territory, including crossing traditionally held and sacred lands.
“Lakota are united with our relatives and allies,” a representative for the Owe Aku International Justice Project, which sponsors non-violent direct-action training to oppose the Keystone XL, told MintPress. “We hope that President Obama has the courage and foresight to deny the permit for the pipeline, but … if he doesn’t, the pipeline will not cross Lakota territory.”
Official emissions estimate
The State Department report was a mix of potentially good and bad news for opponents of the pipeline, which would bring a particularly heavy, dirty form of crude oil from “tar sands” deposits to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.
On one hand, the document included widely disparaged analysis suggesting that approval of the Keystone XL project would not impact on global climate change, given that the Canadian government is keen to move forward with developing the tar sands with or without the pipeline. But analyses from industry and the Canadian government, meanwhile, have pointedly suggested that this is not true.
Further more, the report for the first time formally recognized the significant climate impact that would result from moving, refining and burning the estimated 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil the pipeline would carry every day. The State Department says the use of this oil would be equivalent to putting six million new cars on the streets. Green groups put this figure far higher, equivalent to 37 million more vehicles or 51 new coal-fired power plants.
Either way, such pollution estimates would also appear to directly contradict Obama’s only publicly stated policy stance on the Keystone XL pipeline to date. In a major climate-focused speech last summer, the president stated that he would only approve the project if it were not to substantially contribute to increased carbon emissions. For formal purposes, that increase has now been officially established by the State Department report.
“The new report certainly reinforced our resolve, offering renewed emphasis to show that there’s lots of people power in opposition to the Keystone XL project,” said May Boeve, executive director of 350.org and the 350 Action Fund, advocacy groups started by the environmental activist Bill McKibben that have been particularly prominent in getting people out on the street over the past year in opposition to the pipeline.
“In terms of content, there was definitely some good news in this report, as from the draft to final versions some of the most problematic language about climate risk was removed. We take that as a very good sign and believe that the president now has everything he needs to know to make a decision on this. We think there is ample information in this report to reject the Keystone XL.”
Sign-off by both the president and State Department is required for the northern part of the Keystone project – the “XL” section, which runs to Nebraska – because it crosses an international border. The southern part of the Keystone network did not need such elaborate approval, and is already constructed and recently began operating.
The State Department report is the most significant piece of official evidence required for this process, but it is far from the end of the story. On Friday, State Department officials were at pains to emphasize that the agency’s report did not constitute a “decisional document” and contains no recommendations.
Outside of the possibility of an intervention by Kerry, the decision-making process now opens up a 30-day public comment period on the State Department report. Thereafter, the issue is opened up to a broad, 90-day review by more than a half-dozen federal agencies, one of which is the Environmental Protection Agency, the agency most specifically responsible for environmental and human health impact. Critics of the pipeline see the EPA’s review as another potentially important linchpin in their opposition.
Eventually – and the timeframe here is vague – the final decision would be forwarded to Obama’s desk. Again due to the cross-border nature of the pipeline, the president is required to certify that the project is in the “national interest,” a clearly nebulous set of considerations that would need to take into account considerations as disparate as environmental impact, national energy security, jobs creation and more.
Interestingly, the president has at least twice publicly called into question Keystone supporters’ estimates of the project’s jobs potential, including during Sunday’s interview with conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly.
Politics vs. science
Not covered under the “national interest” moniker is an element of the president’s decision-making process around Keystone that will likely prove decisive: politics.
The administration’s former energy secretary, Steven Chu, made waves on Monday when he told journalists “the decision on whether the construction should happen was a political one and not a scientific one.” He later amended the statement to note, “the studies looking into what are the long-term effects are in fact scientific and that is the only scientific part of the decision.”
Republicans have certainly jumped on the discussion around the Keystone project, which is broadly supported by the U.S. business community.
Reports arose early this week that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives was planning on tying agreement to raise the national “debt ceiling” – which needs to happen by around the end of the month – to either dismantling part of the Affordable Care Act or approval of the Keystone XL.
Although this strategy was reportedly dumped by Wednesday, the move arguably lifted the Keystone proposal to become the second most derisive political issue facing the country today.
Public polling finds the U.S. public broadly divided on the issue. According a September study by Pew Research, 65 percent of Americans support the pipeline, though that includes just 41 percent of self-described liberals. The number of Keystone supporters roughly equaled the numbers that wanted greater development of renewable energy sources and stricter caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
“The political fight is certainly heating up. The question was whether the president will listen to what has become an incredible grassroots movement, with people out in the streets unlike anything the environmental movement has seen for a long time,” Boeve said.
“In fact, this isn’t just an environmental issue. The Keystone fight has really galvanized the entire progressive movement, not to mention farmers and ranchers and local communities in Canada and the U.S. But ultimately for us the greatest strength has been young people, those who have their future at stake and are an important constituency for President Obama.”
Boeve and other organizers are now promising a new round of advocacy and public demonstrations this spring, particularly in March.
Obama, meanwhile, is becoming increasingly squeezed between today’s uniquely strong anti-Keystone movement and political fears by Senate Democrats in conservative states such as West Virginia and Louisiana. With Democratic control of the Senate – and, with it, much of Obama’s potential legislative legacy – hinged on the midterm elections this November, many analysts see the president increasingly looking for ways to put off the decision until after the election is over.