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On Keystone XL, More Delays Mean Missed Opportunity

Apr 21, 2014

Completion of the Keystone XL pipeline would create thousands of jobs, give a boost to the nation's still lagging economy, strengthen our ties with a trusted ally, and reinforce North American energy security just as events in Europe prove the value of stable supplies of oil and natural gas.

Yet the Obama Administration has announced yet another delay on the pipeline to bring oil from Canada and the U.S. Bakken fields to Gulf Coast refineries. The State Department on late Friday afternoon gave the eight federal agencies reviewing the project an undetermined amount of more time to continue their review of the project. The cited reasons? A legal case in the Nebraska Supreme Court that might affect the pipeline's routing and the need for the agencies to review more than two million public comments submitted by the March 7 deadline. That deadline set off a 90-day review period, which by all rights -- by the law -- that should have led to a decision by June.

We're long pass the point where these delays serve any legitimate environmental or public safety purpose. Keystone is, after all, the most studied pipeline in history. As the pipeline company, TransCanada, reports, the project has been languishing now "after more than 2,000 days, five exhaustive environmental reviews and over 17,000 pages of scientific data." In its January Final Environmental Impact Statement, the State Department found that completion of the pipeline would have no appreciable impact on greenhouse gas emissions, since the oil sands are going to be developed in any case. (Without the pipeline, the oil will be shipped by rail or truck.)

According to a recent national poll, Keystone XL is supported by two-thirds of the American public. Organized labor backs it, and so do America's business leaders. There's strong bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for the project, as witnessed by the sharp criticism of the delay by North Dakota's Sens. John Hoeven, a Republican, and Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat.

In May 2012, Business Roundtable wrote Congress urging approval of legislation to expedite the pipeline's construction. As BRT President John Engler wrote:

Approval would trigger a $7 billion business investment in the construction of 1,300 miles of new pipeline, 30 pump stations, and hundreds of access roads, which could deliver more than 800,000 barrels per day of North American oil to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries – enough to displace one-third of the oil currently imported from the Middle East.

Continuing delays have meant that these opportunities have been lost -- probably for the rest of 2014, at a minimum. Today, almost two years after the BRT letter, sponsors still have bills ready in the House and the Senate to approve the pipeline. Congress does not have to delay any more. 

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