keystone xl pipeline – Page 2

Mulcair may have the most explaining to do in tonight’s French-language leaders’ debate

So now we know. The woman who wants to be the next Democrat to occupy the White House has made a decision that the president she hopes to succeed hasn’t, or won’t.

Hillary Clinton came out against the Keystone XL this week, the Canadian-backed pipeline that would carry Alberta bitumen — and some North Dakota crude — through the heartland of America to the giant refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“I think it is imperative that we look at the Keystone pipeline for what I believe it is — a distraction from the important work we have to do on climate change,” Clinton said at a meeting in Iowa, which just happens to be a key battleground state for Democrats in the lead-up to the presidential nomination race next year.

She used stronger language in a later tweet, saying “it’s time to invest in a clean energy future not build a pipeline to carry our continent’s dirtiest oil across the U.S.”

American progressives and environmentalists — key Democratic constituencies — immediately cheered her decision. Barack Obama likely did, too, from the privacy of the Oval Office.

After delaying his own decision, again and again, Clinton’s statement may well relieve him of having to make one at all.

Clinton, too, had delayed stating where she stood. And for good reason. She was Obama’s secretary of state when her department concluded Keystone XL would have no significant impact on oil sands development, support 42,000 jobs and generate billions in tax revenues in the U.S.

But these days, Clinton is more interested in burnishing whatever climate-friendly agenda she intends to roll out, especially now that she’s facing a real threat for the Democratic nomination from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Prime Minister Harper’s Inaction on Climate Killed the Keystone XL Oilsands Pipeline

September 3, 2015

Prime Minister Harper’s Inaction on Climate Killed the Keystone XL Oilsands Pipeline

With U.S. President Barack Obama expected to deny a permit to the Keystone XLpipeline this fall, Canada’s oil industry is looking for someone to blame.

The National Post’s Claudia Cattaneo wrote last week that “many Canadians … would see Obama’s fatal stab as a betrayal by a close friend and ally” and that others “would see it as the product of failure by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to come up with a climate change plan.”

The latter is the more logical conclusion. Obama has made his decision-making criteria clear: he won’t approve the pipeline if it exacerbates the problem of carbon pollution.

Even the U.S. State Department’s very conservative analysis states the Keystone XL pipeline would “substantially increase oilsands expansion and related emissions.” The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed.

While Canada’s energy reviews take into account “upstream benefits” — such as jobs created in the oilsands sector as a result of pipelines — they don’t even consider the upstream environmental impacts created by the expansion of the oilsands.

For all the bluster and finger-pointing, there’s no covering up the fact that Canada’s record on climate change is one of broken promises.

Oil and Gas Regulations Promised Since 2006

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised since 2006 that he’ll regulate oil and gas emissions. Those regulations still haven’t materialized nearly a decade later —and there’s only one person to blame for that.

In recent years, Harper has taken the approach that Canada can’t regulate its oil and gas sector unless the U.S. does too. This argument is fundamentally flawed.

First, it presumes that Canada should outsource its climate policy to another country. On issues from health care to acid rain, Canada has moved independently from the U.S. and prospered as a result.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permits Required to Build TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline in Jeopardy As Hearings Reveal Missteps

August 4, 2015

Permits Required to Build TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline in Jeopardy As Hearings Reveal Missteps

TransCanada’s decision to purchase all of the pipe needed to complete the Keystone XL Pipeline before receiving a presidential permit could prove a costly mistake.

Not only is President Obama expected to reject the permit TransCanada needs in order to cross the U.S.-Canadian border, the company must recertify an expired permit before it can install the pipeline though South Dakota as well.

At a hearing that began on July 29 in Pierre, South Dakota, the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is tasked to decide if it should recertify the company’s permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline through the state. Those opposing the Keystone XL, referred to as interveners, are making the case that TransCanada is not up to the job.

During the first week of the hearing, a mix of members of the grassroots group Dakota Rural Action, Native American tribes, individual landowners, and a team of all of the interveners’ lawyers began presenting testimony challenging TransCanada’s narrative that the Keystone XL “will be the safest pipeline ever built.” The interveners claim that is a public relations ploy far from the truth about TransCanada’s performance record.

TransCanada bears the burden to prove it is capable of following the rules that the PUC set when the original Keystone Pipeline permit was granted in 2010, so it is no surprise that the company objected to the interveners’ introduction of evidence that showed the company has had problems with its other recently constructed pipelines, including the Keystone XL’s southern route, renamed the Gulf Coast Pipeline.

Lawyers for the interveners have also questioned the PUC’s impartially. They believe the commissioners’ pre-hearing rulings to exclude testimony relevant to their case was unjustified. But instead of letting the PUC’s move weaken their case, they laid the foundation during their examination of witnesses that enabled them to refer to the excluded documents in their cross-examination.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Evidence Released at TransCanada’s Keystone XL Permit Renewal Hearing Sheds Light On Serious Pipeline Risks

July 29, 2015

Evidence Released at TransCanada’s Keystone XL Permit Renewal Hearing Sheds Light On Serious Pipeline Risks

Keystone XL protest by Doug Grandt

Just because TransCanada continually states that the Keystone XL pipeline will be the safest pipeline ever built, doesn’t mean it is true.

The company’s pipeline construction record is facing intense scrutiny in America’s heartland, where many see no justifiable rationale to risk their water and agricultural lands for a tar sands export pipeline.

New documents submitted as evidence in the Keystone XL permitting process in South Dakota — including one published here on DeSmog for the first time publicly — paint a troubling picture of the company’s shoddy construction mishaps. This document, produced by TransCanada and signed by two company executives, details the results of its investigation into the “root cause” of the corrosion problems discovered on the Keystone pipeline.

TransCanada Corporation is continuing its push to build the northern route of the Keystone XL pipeline. On July 27, the company appeared at a hearing in Pierre, South Dakota, to seek recertification of the Keystone XLconstruction permit that expired last year.

The Sou th Dakota Public Utilities Commission must decide if TransCanada can guarantee it can build the pipeline under the conditions set in 2010, which it must do in order to have the permit reapproved.

High-profile spills and other incidents already tar TransCanada’s safety record. The company faces at least two known ongoing investigations by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). The incident records of thesouthern route of the Keystone XL (renamed the Gulf Coast Pipeline) and the Keystone 1 Pipeline call into question TransCanada’s claim that its pipelines are among the safest ever built.

Over the last couple of years TransCanada’s public relations team, with the help of friendly regulators, have kept critical evidence away from the public and quashed many media inquiries.

But evidence of TransCanada’s poor performance continues to emerge. Earlier this year, DeSmog obtained documents

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TransCanada cuts 185 jobs as it restructures

June 24, 2015

TransCanada cuts 185 jobs as it restructures

Pipeline company eliminates jobs to remain competitive and cut costs

Keystone XL proponent TransCanada Corp. has laid off 185 people in its major projects department, most of them in Calgary.

The jobs that were cut on Tuesday included about 100 full-time employees while the rest were contract workers.

As a pipeline operator, TransCanada has remained profitable through the oil downturn. In the first quarter, it earned $387 compared to $412 million for the same period in 2014. However, the industry it serves with its pipelines had a collective loss of more than $600 million over the same period.

In an e-mail, TransCanada’s spokesman, Mark Cooper said the company cut the positions as part of a restructuring to control costs and remain competitive.

Cooper said TransCanada needs to provide low-cost services as its customers have been deeply affected by the current low-price environment that has left companies in the oilpatch struggling.

TransCanada is working to move forward on a number of projects, including the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Energy East pipeline.

Both projects have faced delays and regulatory hurdles. The company has about 6,000 employees across North America.

TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline Network Under Investigation by Federal Regulators

May 22, 2015

TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline Network Under Investigation by Federal Regulators

A month after revealing that TransCanada is under a compliance review for the Keystone 1 Pipeline, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration(PHMSA) disclosed it is also investigating the operations of Keystone XL‘s southern route, renamed the Gulf Coast Pipeline when the project was split in half.

The results of these investigations could play a part in President Obama’s final decision on the Keystone XL permit that TransCanada needs to complete its Keystone pipeline network. According to the State Department’s website, one of the factors the KXL presidential permit review process focuses on is compliance with relevant federal regulations.

At TransCanada’s latest shareholder meeting in Calgary, Evan Vokes, a former employee turned whistleblower,asked CEO Russ Girling why the company had not disclosed the ongoing investigations in its current annual report. Girling acknowledged that the company is under review, but assured shareholders that pipeline safety remains the company’s top priority.

After informing stockholders that another whistleblower recently disclosed documents showing that TransCanada had broken the same rules that Vokes exposed in 2010, he asked Girling what TransCanada had done to change things since Vokes worked for the company.

“To the extent that they [the regulators] find any issues with our corporation, we will change to evolve but at the current time there has been nothing put forward that we need to respond to,” Girling said. “Across 70,000 kilometers of pipeline and 64 billion dollars of rotating equipment, there are things we have to address everyday,” Girling said, without citing anything specific.

Vokes alleges TransCanada’s “culture of noncompliance” has not changed. Mounting pipeline failures, including theSuffield Lateral line in Alberta, Canada that failed

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Keystone XL Pipeline Could Result In Higher Emissions After All, EPA Says

February 4, 2015

Keystone XL Pipeline Could Result In Higher Emissions After All, EPA Says

WASHINGTON – Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. likes to joke that he walks around Washington carrying a copy of the State Department report on the Keystone XL pipeline tucked in his jacket pocket.

That’s how critical that document has been to the pipeline cause. Proponents from ambassador Gary Doer, to members of the Harper cabinet, industry players, and pro-oil lawmakers have repeatedly quoted it as a talking point.

Its basic conclusion became their mantra: Canadian oil production is destined to keep growing, so might as well build a pipeline, which is safer and cleaner than shipping by rail.

That document, however, is now being punctured by bursts of friendly fire.

President Barack Obama routinely ignores the report’s finding that oil from the pipeline would likely be used in the U.S. Obama has taken to deriding the project as an export route through America, not to America.

An even more fundamental finding of the report is now being challenged from within the Obama administration. The Environmental Protection Agency has questioned the likelihood of oilsands expansion. It suggests the existing analysis is out of date, because the price of oil has plunged since the State Department issued its report last year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Nebraskans are winning the fight against Keystone XL

January 28, 2015

How Nebraskans are winning the fight against Keystone XL

Senate Democrats filibustered a measure yesterday that would speed up the vote on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which could take the decision on Keystone out of the hands of both the White House and the State Department. Known as cloture, the move — pushed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — would have effectively quashed 12 amendments to the bill brought by Democrats, including one to close the “Haliburton loophole” and mandate that gas drilling companies comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act, and another to require that oil companies contribute money to government clean-up efforts in the event of spills or leakage. In the wake of the 50,000 gallon crude oil spill into Montana’s Yellowstone River on January 17, the result of a pipeline “breach,” Republicans’ efforts seem especially bold. As congressional Republicans jockey to rush approval of the controversial infrastructure project, the millions who live along the Keystone XL’s proposed route have been left out of the conversation on Capitol Hill.

Art Tanderup is a farmer and retired schoolteacher. He and his wife, Helen, live in Antelope County, Neb., just outside the town of Neligh along the eastern Sandhills and over the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water to over 80 percent of High Plains residents — around 2.3 million people. A few years ago, a representative from TransCanada told the Tanderups that the Keystone XL pipeline would run directly through their property, offering — as they had other landowners in the region — money to sign an “easement,” or legal right of way for the company to build on their farm. After researching the pipeline and the tar sands, Art became involved with Bold Nebraska, which has been a leading voice in the fight against the pipeline since its founding in 2010. Since that time, Art has been active in the movement against the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska and at the national level, working with the Cowboy Indian Alliance and advocating against the pipeline in Washington, D.C. Last fall, Tanderup Farms hosted Willie Nelson, Neil Young and thousands from around the country for the “Harvest of Hope” concert, a benefit for Bold Nebraska, theIndigenous Environmental Network and the Cowboy Indian Alliance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Enbridge Gets Another Federal Tar Sands Crude Pipeline Permit As Senate Debates Keystone XL

January 28, 2015

Enbridge Gets Another Federal Tar Sands Crude Pipeline Permit As Senate Debates Keystone XL

On January 16, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave Enbridge a controversialNationwide Permit 12 green-light for its proposed Line 78 pipeline, set to bring heavy tar sands diluted bitumen (“dilbit”)from Pontiac, Illinois to its Griffith, Indiana holding terminal.

The permit for the pipeline with the capacity to carry 800,000 barrels-per-day of tar sands dilbit came ten days after the introduction of S.1 — the Keystone XL Pipeline Act — currently up for debate on the U.S. Senate floor, which calls for the permitting of the northern leg of TransCanada’s Keystone XL.

Image Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Griffith is located just south of Whiting, Indiana, home of a massive refinery owned by BP. In November 2013, BP opened its Whiting Modernization Project, whichretooled to refine up to 85-percent of its capacity as heavy dilbit from the tar sands, up from its initial 20-percent capacity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Obama Vows To Fight For Climate Policies In State Of The Union But What He Didn’t Mention Was Just As Telling

January 21, 2015

Obama Vows To Fight For Climate Policies In State Of The Union But What He Didn’t Mention Was Just As Telling

President Barack Obama could not have signaled more clearly in his 2015 State of the Union address that he intends to fight for his legacy on climate change in the face of a hostile, anti-science GOP-led House and Senate.

But it was what the President didn’t mention that could negate his climate legacy: free trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership that undermine local efforts to lower emissions, projects like Keystone XL that lock us into decades of continued dirty energy use, and the exporting of American-made coal, crude oil and natural gas to overseas markets.

Which is not to say that every policy position Obama laid out regarding energy and the environment entirely matched his lofty rhetoric about climate change.

At this moment — with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, and booming energy production — we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come.

While Obama went on to list a number of achievements made in growing domestic renewable energy capacity under his watch, he also continued to pay lip service to an “all of the above” energy strategy—a strategy scientists tell us we most definitely do not have 15 more years to continue subscribing to.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?

January 15, 2015

Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?

On Monday the Keystone XL pipeline project crossed another hurdle when legislation approving construction of the proposed line to connect Canadian oil sands crude with Gulf Coast refineries was passed by the United States Senate.

The bill sailed through 63 votes to 32 in the Senate, which is now in the hands of the Republicans following November mid-term elections, along with the House of Representatives, which passed the same Keystone legislation last week.

With the bill well on its way to becoming law, it will up to President Obama to decide on whether or not to veto it, a decision he has held off for six years. Obama has criticized the project as adding to greenhouse gas emissions, despite an environmental assessment to the contrary by the State Department released a year ago, and because he argues it would help Canadian producers to deliver crude for export, against the claims of the proponent, TransCanada Corp, which maintains the oil will be processed in US refineries and consumed domestically.

While the political machinations of Keystone, with all the horse trading it inevitably entails, certainly make for some excellent headlines, an equally pressing question is whether the project is even viable with today’s oil prices, which dropped further on Monday to below $46 a barrel in North America.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?

January 14, 2015

Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?

On Monday the Keystone XL pipeline project crossed another hurdle when legislation approving construction of the proposed line to connect Canadian oil sands crude with Gulf Coast refineries was passed by the United States Senate.

The bill sailed through 63 votes to 32 in the Senate, which is now in the hands of the Republicans following November mid-term elections, along with the House of Representatives, which passed the same Keystone legislation last week.

With the bill well on its way to becoming law, it will up to President Obama to decide on whether or not to veto it, a decision he has held off for six years. Obama has criticized the project as adding to greenhouse gas emissions, despite an environmental assessment to the contrary by the State Department released a year ago, and because he argues it would help Canadian producers to deliver crude for export, against the claims of the proponent, TransCanada Corp, which maintains the oil will be processed in US refineries and consumed domestically.

While the political machinations of Keystone, with all the horse trading it inevitably entails, certainly make for some excellent headlines, an equally pressing question is whether the project is even viable with today’s oil prices, which dropped further on Monday to below $46 a barrel in North America.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Falling Oil Prices Could Help Stop the Keystone Project

January 10, 2015

How Falling Oil Prices Could Help Stop the Keystone Project

At 3 p.m. on a Friday last January, two days before the 2014 Super Bowl, the State Department released a favorable assessment of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline’s environmental impacts. Though citizens had submitted nearly two million comments during consideration of the report, the timing suggested officials hoped most people would be focused on football.

Events since then have made the State Department’s reluctance to draw attention to its assessment look like the right strategy. The report’s

Wikimedia Commons

Pipeline laid near Swanton, Nebraska, in an early phase of the Keystone project in 2009.

assumptions about oil prices and alternatives to Keystone XL have been thoroughly undermined, and prospects for continued expansion of the tar sands, the vast Canadian oil deposit that the pipeline would link to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, have significantly declined.

Despite this, leaders of the new Republican-controlled Congress this week pushed forward legislation that would force approval of Keystone XL, and they expected both houses to pass it this month. Congressional action was moving ahead even though the White House announced on Tuesday that President Obama would veto the legislation.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Keystone Pipeline’s Nebraska Path Cleared; Congress Votes

January 10, 2015

Keystone Pipeline’s Nebraska Path Cleared; Congress Votes

TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline faces one less hurdle after Nebraska’s highest court cleared its path through the state, sending the matter back to Washington.

The pipeline would funnel crude from Alberta’s oil sands to a network junction in southeast Nebraska, for transport to Gulf Coast refineries. While the ruling is a victory for energy independence proponents, the project’s fate remains uncertain.

It now returns to President Barack Obama, who had put off a decision citing the pending lawsuit. Today, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would force approval of the pipeline.

While four of the seven Nebraska Supreme Court judges held that they would block Keystone XL, five were needed to declare unconstitutional a law that allowed the governor to dictate its path. As a result, the route survived by default.

Justice William Connolly, writing for the judges who wanted to block the project, criticized dissenters for refusing to address its legality. Those three judges argued the property owners who challenged the pipeline don’t have the right to sue.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over Politics, Not Facts

January 9, 2015

Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over Politics, Not Facts

WASHINGTON — In 2009, the Obama administration approved a 986-mile pipeline to bring 400,000 barrels of oil sands petroleum a day from western Canada to the United States. Almost no one paid attention. Construction on the pipeline, called the Alberta Clipper, was quietly completed last year.

In that same period, the administration considered construction of a similar project, the Keystone XL. So far only in the blueprint stage, this pipeline has become an explosive political issue that Republicans are seizing as their first challenge to President Obama in the new Congress.

The Republican-controlled House is set to pass a bill to force approval of Keystone on Friday and the Senate is expected to pass the measure in coming weeks. Republicans say the pipeline will create jobs and spur the economy while environmentalists and some Democrats say it will destroy pristine forests and create carbon pollution. Mr. Obama has vowed to veto the bill.

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