State Dept. Fails to Find Keystone Flaws

Keystone XL oil pipeline gets tentative OK from State Dept

The long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline cleared a major hurdle toward approval Friday, a serious blow to environmentalists' hopes that President Barack Obama will block the controversial project running more than 1,000 miles from Canada through the heart of the U.S.

The State Department reported no major environmental objections to the proposed $7 billion pipeline, which has become a symbol of the political debate over climate change. Republicans and some oil- and gas-producing states in the U.S. - as well as Canada's minister of natural resources - cheered the report, but it further rankled environmentalists already at odds with Obama and his energy policy.

The report stops short of recommending approval of the pipeline, but the review gives Obama new support if he chooses to endorse it in spite of opposition from many Democrats and environmental groups. Foes say the pipeline would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming, and they also express concern about possible spills.

As Obama's own Energy Secretary points out, our ability to transport oil is lagging behind our ability to get it, leading to rail accidents, and greater chances of oil spills that 'environmentalists' nominally oppose:

The energy boom of the last decade that has boosted oil and gas production in the United States has outpaced the development of critical infrastructure to transport the raw and refined materials, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said on Thursday.

Reflecting on a spate of accidents involving freight trains pulling tank cars full of volatile crude oil in Canada and the United States, Moniz said that infrastructure development was key, even beyond a reconsideration of rail regulations now under way by U.S. authorities.

"The core approach, really, is that our infrastructure needs to build out," Moniz said in an interview with Reuters Insider.

"Here we have a case, especially with the production in North Dakota, where the Bakken shale (output) zoomed from essentially nothing to past 1 million barrels a day," he said.

"There's not the pipe infrastructure for moving the product out ... you have a slight mismatch in terms of how we add infrastructure to handling our new production."

Preznit Obama appears to be running out of excuses to approve the pipeline, but I have no doubt he can find someway to push the decision past the 2014 elections so the democrats can continue to get money from both the unions who want the pipeline and the environmental lobby who doesn't.  Canadians don't get to vote in the US.  Yet.