Trans Canada is expected to file a new application
for the rerouted cross-border segment of the controversial Keystone XL tar
sands bitumen pipeline today, May 4. The filing will reignite the election year
political rhetoric surrounding environmental permitting and construction of the
huge project. The southern leg of the new pipeline, from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port
Arthur, Texas, is already in the 45 day Corps of Engineers permit process. If
the Corps does not deny the permit within the 45 day period, it will be
automatically granted. The northern segment, from Hardisty, Alberta to Cushing,
requires a permit from the State Department because it crosses the
international border between the U.S. and Canada.
Trans Canada’s proposed new route across Nebraska
dodges what that state has defined as the environmentally sensitive Sandhills
region, but environmentalists say that Nebraska bureaucrats have defined the
Sandhills too narrowly, and also complain that the new route will still carry
the thick crude over parts of the Ogallala aquifer, which provides drinking and
irrigation water to an eight state region, including parts of Colorado, Kansas,
Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.
Over a quarter of all irrigated farmland in the
United States is served by the Ogallala. Eighty two percent of the folks living
above the Ogallala get their drinking water from it. Those key facts, plus the
general environmental opposition to Canadian tar sands mining as a contributor
to global warming, form the basis of opposition to the pipeline. However,
election year campaign rhetoric is more likely than scientific fact to determine
the outcome of the permitting process.
House Speaker John Boehner has issued yet another
statement on Keystone XL, proclaiming that, “With Nebraska now on board and the
application being re-filed, the president has lost his always flimsy excuse for
blocking this job creating project. With energy security at stake and jobs on
the line, he should listen to the American people, not just his political base,
and approve it immediately.” Environmental opponents to the project are equally
adamant. Bold Nebraska Executive Director Jane Kleeb responds, “The fundamental
facts remain; Americans are being asked to put clean water at risk for an
extreme form of energy that will add nothing to our energy security.”
At least the environmentalists don’t deny that
building the project would create jobs.
