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Keystone XL Builder Tries A Delay Tactic Of Its Own As Obama Nears A Decision

Keystone XL Builder Tries A Delay Tactic Of Its Own As Obama Nears A Decision

By William Yardley and Michael A. Memoli, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

SEATTLE — The company that hopes to build the Keystone XL pipeline to carry crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast asked the Obama administration Monday to delay its review of the proposal — a striking turn that adds further uncertainty to a project that has generated bitter debate since it was proposed seven years ago.

The company, TransCanada, made its request in a three-paragraph letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry, citing legal challenges it said had prompted it to change tactics. The State Department must review the project because it would cross an international border. President Barack Obama had said that he would make the final decision.

“TransCanada believes that it would be appropriate at this time for the State Department to pause in its review of the presidential permit application for Keystone XL,” the company wrote.

Spokesman Mark Cooper said TransCanada was not withdrawing its application. Instead, he said, “We are asking the State Department to suspend a decision.”

A State Department official said the agency was reviewing the request.

The move by TransCanada appeared to confirm speculation that the company hopes to push off a decision until the next administration because it fears Obama will reject the pipeline. Hours before TransCanada announced its request, the White House said it expected Obama to make a decision about the pipeline “before the end of his administration,” though it did not specify when.

The request also reflects a remarkable turnabout by TransCanada, which has spent years complaining of delays in the process only now to request one itself.

Last month, after meeting stiff legal resistance from landowners in Nebraska, the company decided to withdraw its plans to use a special state law that would allow it to exercise eminent domain to seize land for its preferred pipeline route. The company instead applied for a permit through the Nebraska Public Service Commission, a process that could take a year.

The company referred to those events in its letter to Kerry, in effect claiming that the legal opposition to how TransCanada was operating in Nebraska should prevent a federal decision on the pipeline in general that could go against it. It said a previous legal challenge to the project last year had caused uncertainty that prompted the State Department to temporarily suspend its review.

“We submit that, in the current circumstances, a similar suspension of the review process would be appropriate,” the company wrote. “In order to allow time for certainty regarding the Nebraska route, TransCanada requests that the State Department pause in its review of the Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL.”

The pipeline would carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, across the U.S. border south to Gulf Coast refineries. Supporters say the project would boost jobs and contribute to energy security. Environmentalists contend it would increase emission of greenhouse gases.

The price of oil has plummeted dramatically since the pipeline was proposed, and the oil industry has pulled back from many large projects. Royal Dutch Shell recently announced it would abandon its effort to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean “for the foreseeable future.”

Even as TransCanada requested a delay, opponents of the project urged the administration to reject the project anyway.

“Today, tomorrow or next year, the answer will be the same: Keystone XL is a bad deal for America, our climate, and our economy,” Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist and Democratic donor, said in a statement Monday. “Secretary Kerry should reject TransCanada’s request for delay, and President Obama should immediately reject the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all.”

Obama has long argued that he would judge the pipeline based on whether it accelerates the effects of climate change, and secondarily on whether it would significantly affect how much Americans pay for energy.

“We’re not going to authorize a pipeline that benefits largely a foreign company if it can’t be shown that it is safe and if it can’t be shown that overall it would not contribute to climate change,” he said at a town hall meeting this year.

A top official in the Environmental Protection Agency told the State Department in a letter this year that tar sands crude “represents a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions” over conventional crude, and that Keystone XL could lead to expanded production of greenhouse gases. The letter was seen as providing potential cover for the president to reject the pipeline.

Opponents of the project have been increasingly confident that the president would ultimately reject it, but Obama has suggested that its political boosters and to some degree its detractors have overstated its potential effects.

“I’ve just tried to give this perspective,” he told reporters in December.

Although TransCanada’s request may free Obama from a politically thorny decision, the issue is not likely to go away for candidates in the 2016 presidential race.

Keystone XL long ago evolved into shorthand among conservatives as an example of liberal overreach. Some Republicans have cited the Obama administration’s long-simmering decision-making on the pipeline as an example of how it stifled potential job-creating projects to advance its environmental agenda.

While Republican presidential contenders have expressed support for Keystone XL, Democratic candidates have argued against it.

Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in September that she would oppose the project after months of silence on an issue she had confronted during her time as secretary of State.

“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 to combat climate change and, unfortunately from my perspective, one that interferes with our ability to move forward,” she told voters in Iowa.

Her main rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, also opposes Keystone.

Credo Action, a liberal activist group, called TransCanada’s request Monday a “desperate” attempt to prevent Obama from blocking the project altogether.

“This is President Obama’s decision, and he shouldn’t cave to a foreign oil company trying to twist his arm into punting it to future presidents,” Elijah Zarlin, Credo’s climate campaign director, said in a statement.

But Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat who supports the project, expressed frustration at how Keystone had been conflated “into the foremost emotional and overly politicized issue.”

“Halting a basic infrastructure expansion project will not make this country more energy efficient or independent, but it does set a foreboding precedent about our ability to achieve those goals,” she said.
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(Yardley reported from Seattle and Memoli from Washington. Staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.)

Photo: Pipes for Transcanada Corp’s planned Keystone XL oil pipeline are pictured in Gascoyne, North Dakota in this November 14, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/Andrew Cullen/Files

Keystone XL Owner Files Eminent Domain Proceedings For Nebraska Land

Keystone XL Owner Files Eminent Domain Proceedings For Nebraska Land

By Maria L. La Ganga, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

SEATTLE — TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, filed eminent domain proceedings against 90 Nebraska landowners Tuesday to gain access to the final acreage needed to build the controversial project.

“Eminent domain is a last resort and our first priority is always to negotiate voluntary agreements with landowners,” TransCanada’s Keystone projects land manager Andrew Craig said in a written statement.

“We have made numerous offers to negotiate generous agreements with landowners,” he said. “We have waited as long as we could under state law before beginning the process — as we said we would.”

TransCanada’s eminent domain filings are the latest step in a years-long war over the pipeline, which can’t go forward without President Barack Obama’s go-ahead.

Nebraska is currently the project’s most contentious battlefield. A 2012 law allowed the Nebraska governor to bypass the state Public Service Commission and give the $5.3 billion TransCanada project the go-ahead. Approval for the current route was granted in 2013.

In February of last year, a lower court declared the law unconstitutional and left the troubled pipeline with no approved route through Nebraska. Less than two weeks ago, on Jan. 9, the Nebraska Supreme Court struck down the lower court’s ruling and cleared the way for Obama to act.

The Republican-majority Congress has made Keystone XL one of its first priorities for 2015.

Jane Kleeb, director of anti-pipeline group Bold Nebraska, said in a written statement Tuesday that landowners “are prepared to battle TransCanada in court to stop them from using eminent domain for private gain. …”

“Landowners will match TransCanada’s lawsuits in local courts,” she said, “and continue to take our fight to the one person who can put an end to all of this: President Obama.”

AFP Photo/Don Emmert

Environmentalists Sue Government Over Tar Sands Pipeline

Is the Obama Administration really in the pocket of green energy companies? Based on new developments in the tar sands pipeline approval process, it seems that the White House is continuing the American political tradition of favoring fossil fuel companies.

In recent months, the intense debate over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has ignited environmentalists, brought hundreds of protesters to the White House, and raised serious questions about the State Department. Now, it’s reaching the courts, as activists voice concerns that the government is prioritizing the interests of a foreign oil company over those of its citizens.

The proposed TransCanada pipeline, which would stretch from the Canadian tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast refineries, has drawn criticisms from environmentalists who argue that the pipeline has a significant risk of accidents and that the tar sands oil has a larger carbon output than conventional oil. Despite this opposition, the U.S. government has been generally supportive of the controversial project.

On Wednesday, three conservation groups filed a lawsuit to halt preliminary work on the project, alleging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service illegally gave TransCanada permission to begin preparing the pipeline’s route in Nebraska. “We learned that work was being done without a permit, and that was just flabbergasting,” said Damon Moglen, the director of the Climate and Energy Program at the environmental organization Friends of the Earth. His group, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Nebraska Resources Center, sued the United States government in an effort to stop what they consider illegal work on a project that has yet to receive final approval. The activists believe the preparatory work is further evidence that the government has been facilitating and supporting the project without a full, impartial environmental assessment.

TransCanada responded by saying they have not begun construction and have merely been making an effort to protect the environment in the area of Nebraska along the proposed pipeline route: The company says they have only “implemented certain approved conservation measures designed to protect the American Burying Beetle.” According to their official statement in response to the lawsuit, “Like so many claims made by the professional activists who are opposing Keystone, these claims are false — no construction has taken place in Nebraska. These professional activists need to come explain to Nebraskans why they are opposed to environmental studies, surveys, and protective measures being completed before any construction begins. It sure doesn’t make sense to us.”

Even so, environmental groups have argued that any early work along the proposed pipeline path shows that TransCanada is assuming they will soon be granted the necessary permissions and permits from the U.S. government before the official decision is made. “It’s a remarkable indication of the arrogance of the company,” Moglen said.

The alleged preparatory work is one of several complaints by activists that the government is bowing to TransCanada instead of fully considering the potential environmental impact. The pipeline project requires approval from the State Department because it crosses the border, but opponents of the pipeline argue that this department is unfit to make a fair decision. The State Department released a report in August concluding that the pipeline did not pose any significant environmental risks, even though the European Commission and other groups have recently found conclusive evidence that tar sands oil is almost a quarter more polluting than conventional crude oil.

Opponents of the pipeline claim the State Department’s continued support of the Keystone XL project is based more in officials’ cozy relationship with TransCanada lobbyists and employees than in a genuine conviction that the project will not be environmentally detrimental. The activists recently released email correspondence between TransCanada employees and State Department officials, revealing a close relationship between the parties that could unfairly influence the government’s ability to make an unbiased decision. In the disclosed emails, one State Department official even cheered a lobbyist’s success in gaining more support for the project.

In an Oct. 4 letter to President Obama, a group of environmentalists wrote, “Given this substantial evidence of pro-industry bias within your administration — evidence that the State Department was acting in partnership with the oil industry and Canadian government to secure pipeline approval prior to conducting an environmental review — it would be irresponsible for you to follow the State Department’s guidance as you make your determination about whether the pipeline is in the national interest.”

Moglen said the bias revealed in the emails is evidence that the State Department’s analysis of the project is a “tainted process,” and he hopes President Obama will intervene and make the decisions based on clear evidence. “I think it’s clear this is a scandal of the highest order,” Moglen said. “This is something the president can no longer afford to not pay attention to.”

Additionally, activists have argued that the TransCanada scandal has shown that — despite Republican claims to the contrary — the Obama Administration has maintained a close relationship with oil companies. “They’ve been caving into the fossil fuel industry,” Moglen said.

Obama has recently been criticized because the Energy Department gave a $535 million loan to the solar company Solyndra, which went subsequently went bankrupt. Obama’s opponents have used the scandal to argue that the administration wastes taxpayer money on green technologies. Environmentalists, however, dispute this claim and point to the TransCanada emails as well as the president’s weak reaction to the BP oil spill to show that the White House is still much more sympathetic to fossil fuels than alternative energy companies. “I think the Solyndra situation is obviously being used for political purposes,” Moglen said. “I think the idea that he is enamored with green energy is sophomoric by a long shot.”

Even so, environmental activists remain optimistic that Obama will intervene, fairly assess the potential impact of the pipeline, and ultimately reject TransCanada’s project. The debate over green energy and fossil fuels is politically sensitive for the president, and his decision on the Keystone XL pipeline will undoubtedly factor into his re-election prospects. In the meantime, environmentalists are continuing their fight to halt the pipeline through any means possible.

Environmentalists Protest Against Tar Sands Pipeline

The president might be on vacation, but that hasn’t stopped environmental activists from protesting outside the White House. The crowd has been assembled since Aug. 20 in an attempt to raise awareness about the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Canadian tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico. The demonstrators are fighting against the pipeline because oil from tar sands emits more carbon than normal oil, thereby contributing that much more to climate change.

The pipeline, proposed by the Canadian energy company TransCanada, would cost $7 billion and would stretch 1,700 miles south from the Alberta tar sands to Texas refineries. It would carry as much as 900,000 barrels of oil a day, doubling U.S. imports of Canadian crude. The proposed pipeline, scheduled for completion in 2013, would supplement the existing Keystone pipeline — which has already leaked several times in its one year of use.

The oil from the tar sands is particularly controversial because it has a carbon output 20 percent higher than conventional oil supplies. The State Department is finalizing an environmental impact statement on the proposal, which is expected this month, and they will issue a decision by the end of the year.

For the construction of the pipeline to begin, Obama would have to sign a certificate of national interest since it crosses the border. Congress is not involved in this measure, giving environmentalists more hope that they can effect change without dealing with climate change-skeptical politicians.

In an Aug. 16 Washington Post op-ed, organizer Bill McKibben wrote that more than a thousand people had signed up to be arrested during the two weeks of protests. He outlined the protesters’ goals, writing,

We have, not surprisingly, concerns about potential spills and environmental degradation from construction of the pipeline. But those tar sands are also the second-largest pool of carbon in the atmosphere, behind only the oil fields of Saudi Arabia.…For now, the Keystone pipeline is the best proxy we have for real presidential commitment to the global warming fight.

McKibben is one of more than 220 protesters who have been arrested for sitting in front of the White House. Demonstrators plan to come in waves during the two-week protest, with another 1,800 people promising to join. The biggest day of action is planned for Saturday.

The fossil fuel industry has fought back and is trying to convince the president to approve the pipeline. Given Alberta’s remote location, the Keystone XL pipeline is essentially the only viable route — meaning that if the president doesn’t approve, the oil will most likely stay in the ground.

The protesters will be waiting for the president upon his return from Martha’s Vineyard, urging Obama to take a stand for the environment. For now, the future of the Keystone XL pipeline is uncertain.