Foggy Bottom Green Lights Keystone Pipeline

State Department sees no environmental red flags on Keystone route

The State Department said Friday that the Keystone pipeline expansion should have no significant effect on the environment along its proposed route, but stopped short of saying whether or not the controversial pipeline should be approved.

If the company behind the pipeline, TransCanada, follows all the rules, its "construction and normal operation" of the pipeline should pose no major risks, the State Department said in its draft environmental impact statement. That statement is now open for a 45-day public comment period. The Obama administration will make its decision about the pipeline later this year, likely in mid-summer.

This, of course, doesn't help President Obama one little bit; he either offends his extreme environmentalist base by accepting their recommendations, or offends his union base by turning it down.  My guess is, he'll find another way to put this off another year or three.  It's already taken twice as long to approve the Keystone Pipeline than it would have taken to build it.

The Sierra Club expressed it's opinion in it's usual well measured tones:

"The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department’s deeply flawed analysis today and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children’s future: climate disruption.

"We’re mystified as to how the State Department can acknowledge the negative effects of the Earth’s dirtiest oil on our climate, but at the same time claim that the proposed pipeline will ‘not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects.’ Whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice.

"President Obama said that he’s committed to fighting the climate crisis. If that is true, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline."

Of course, if the Keystone Pipeline is not built, the oil will be extracted anyway, and sold to China, who will certainly burn it more cleanly than the United States, which has the EPA regulating oil use.