OUR VIEW: Stop the foot-dragging and build Keystone oil pipeline
Editors, USA Today, March 18, 2011
When oil companies wanted to build a pipeline across Alaska in 1970, critics offered a dozen reasons to say no. The hot oil in the line would melt the permafrost. The route crossed an earthquake fault and forded hundreds of streams and rivers. The huge pipe would block caribou migration. And so on.
OPPOSING VIEW: 'Expensive and unnecessary'
Some of the objections were valid, and the line was engineered to cope with them. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline went into operation in 1977, and while there have been spills and accidents, predicted disasters never materialized. The line has brought about 16 billion barrels of oil south from the North Slope, reducing foreign dependency and replacing about four years worth of imports.
Four decades after the Trans-Alaska debate, another large pipeline project is facing similar criticism and forecasts of catastrophe. The proposed, privately financed Keystone XL Pipeline would expand an existing line to bring crude from tar sands deposits in Canada through the U.S. to refineries near Houston. The State Department — which has the lead because the proposed line would cross an international border —said this week that it would postpone its decision to allow further environmental review.
Why? The Keystone expansion would provide an extra 500,000 barrels of oil a day from a secure ally and neighbor, enabling the U.S. to offset declining supplies from Mexico and Venezuela and avoid having to reach out to less-stable oil exporters. At a time of rising gasoline prices and turmoil in the Middle East, the U.S. is in no position to be finicky about its oil imports.
Pipelines are a mature technology — more than 50,000 miles of crude oil pipelines already crisscross the nation. Accidents and leaks are typically small and easily contained. Critics of the 1,661-mile Keystone project cite a big spill in a Michigan line carrying tar sands oil, but that line was installed in 1969.
Environmental concerns about extracting oil from tar sands are more valid. The process often involves injecting wells with steam, or surface-mining the tar sands, which scars the landscape and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil production. But whether to authorize those methods is a decision for the Canadian government, not the U.S. In all likelihood, the oil is going to be produced and sold somewhere, regardless of whether the Keystone project is approved.
The Obama administration is clearly of two minds on energy — wanting a cleaner future with smarter choices, but stuck in a reality that dictates continued reliance on fossil fuels. That ambivalence is likely part of the reason for the latest delay in making a decision about the Keystone pipeline, which was proposed in 2008.
Enough already.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had it right back in October when she said, "We're either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the (Persian) Gulf or dirty oil from Canada. And until we can get our act together as a country and figure out that clean, renewable energy is in both our economic interests and the interests of the planet ... " Here Clinton trailed off, but her meaning was clear.
And here's something else to consider: If the U.S. blocks the pipeline, Canadian developers have made it clear they'll be glad to build west instead of south — and sell oil from the West Coast to China.
OPPOSING VIEW: 'Expensive and unnecessary'
By Jeremy Symons, USA Today, March 18, 2011
Beware of oil companies offering bumper-sticker solutions to our energy problems. The more we pay at the pump, the more they profit. Big Oil routinely funds campaigns to block clean energy initiatives and distract us from the real problem: our oil addiction.
OUR VIEW: Stop the foot-dragging and build Keystone oil pipeline
Oil companies now want an expensive and unnecessary pipeline to carry tar sludge from Alberta to Texas refineries. Canada is our ally, but when disruptions occur anywhere, the price for oil increases everywhere, whether it comes from the Middle East, the U.S. or Alberta's tar sands. After violence broke out in Libya, Canadian prices jumped $12 per barrel— even more than the $10 increase for Saudi oil.
The Keystone XL Pipeline scheme is an oil supply mirage that will only increase gas prices further. According to industry documents, the pipeline will help oil companies increase prices by $4 billion annually. Everyone will pay more, but families and farmers in the Midwest will get hit hardest.
Pipelines already carry all the tar sludge Canada produces to Midwest refineries. Oil companies want to re-route this supply to Texas, where refining capacity is being expanded by Aramco, the Saudi oil giant. They can then ship the refined gasoline and diesel overseas, as they are doing more and more frequently from Texas.
Before new pipelines are built, we need updated pipeline regulations that address the safety challenges of carrying corrosive and toxic tar sludge under the high pressures and temperatures required. A tar sludge pipeline recently dumped 800,000 gallons into Michigan's Kalamazoo River, triggering health problems for 58% of nearby residents. A spill into the Ogallala aquifer, which lies beneath Keystone's path, would contaminate a vital clean water resource.
Oil companies also need to be held accountable for their reckless and destructive tar sands operations. Forest wilderness is being replaced with vast toxic lakes that kill migratory birds. Emissions of greenhouse gas pollution are 82% higher than in conventional oil production.
This pipeline isn't a solution to our oil addiction. When our kids grow up, they should be benefiting from American clean energy, not hooked on expensive and destructive tar sludge from Canada.
Jeremy Symons is a senior vice president of the National Wildlife Federation.
USA TODAY OPINION
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