EnergyEPA slams State Department’s Keystone XL pipeline review

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday criticized the State Department’s environmental impact review of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying there was not enough evidence to back up key conclusions in the review on emissions, safety, and alternative routes.

The L.A. Times reports that the agency sent a letter to top State Department officials to express the EPA’s “environmental objections” to the review, which stated that the pipeline would have but a small impact on the environment.

The pipeline will carry crude oil along a 1,700 mile stretch from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.

Shawn Howard, a spokesman for the pipeline’s owner, TransCanada, told the Times, “We have not seen that comment so I can’t respond to it specifically.”

Environmentalists, however, praised the EPA analysis.

“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,” Jim Murphy, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior counsel, told the Times. “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.”

The EPA’s assessment of the review was part of a public comment period on the Department of State’s draft report on the pipeline’s effect on air, water, endangered species, and surrounding communities and their economy.

The Times notes that the EPA’s comments could have a negative effect on the approval of the project, but if the project is approved, the comments could serve as supporting evidence in any ligation against the pipeline.

Typically, the State Department has the final say on pipelines that cross international borders, but  the Keystone XL project has become a hot political  issue, so President Barack Obama said he would make the decision later this year.

Supporters of the pipeline say it will create thousands of jobs and import oil from a friendly neighbor, thus replacing oil from hostile foreign countries. Opponents of the project say the pipeline poses a  risk to the environment, that the jobs it will create would be few and only  temporary, and that much of the oil piped from Canada and refined in Gulf Coast refineries would not be used in North America. Rather, the refineries will sell it for a higher price abroad.

Once the public comment period ends next month, the State Department will issue a final environmental impact statement, then make a determination whether the pipeline is in the “national interest.”

The EPA’s calculations show that if the pipeline is approved and running at full capacity, it could potentially add 936 million metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere over a 50-year period. These emissions would hurt efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Then, opponents say, there is the issue of oil spills. The EPA has been working since 2010 to clean up an oil spill of heavy oil sands crude into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The cleanup for the spill has already exceeded $1 billion. In  its the letter to the state department, the EPA said it has learned that oil sands crude spills“may require different response actions or equipment” than conventional oil. Also, the effects on public health and the environment might be different because the oil sands crude does “not appreciably biodegrade.”

The EPA requested that the State Department demand a higher level of pipeline safety and spill preparedness from TransCanada.