Press Releases

D.C.- State Department officials said they were still weighing whether or not to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline even after Friday’s release of a final environmental assessment that concluded the project’s construction would not significantly alter global greenhouse gas emissions.

“Approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the proposed Project, remains unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands, or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States,” the new environmental report said.

The multi-billion dollar pipeline, which would transport heavy crude from oil sands from Canada’s Alberta province into the heart of the U.S. pipeline network, has become the focus of intense controversy. Foes say it will contribute to climate change and supporters say it will secure U.S. oil supplies from a friendly neighbor and create U.S. construction jobs.

The release of the long-awaited Final Environmental Impact Statement will trigger an avalanche of lobbying efforts aimed at Secretary of State John Kerry, who has made climate change a central focus of his career and will now begin deliberating on the pipeline decision.

The decision remains politically fraught for Democrats. Environmental activists fiercely oppose it, on the grounds that it could leak and spill oil in sensitive areas, accelerate development of the greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands in Alberta, and increase America’s dependence on fossil fuels.

The State Department’s report includes 11 volumes of analysis on how the proposed pipeline would affect heavy crude extraction in Canada’s oil sands, and reaches the same conclusion as its draft report did in March: no single infrastructure project will alter the course of oil development in Alberta.

But a senior State Department official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss the report’s findings in advance of its release, said Friday the study “is only one factor that comes into the consideration” of whether to give TransCanada, a Calgary-based energy giant, a permit to build the pipeline.

“It does not answer the broader question about how a decision on this potential pipeline fits in with broader national and international efforts to address climate change and climate priorities or other questions of foreign policy or energy security,” the official said.

The official added that while the report notes “the approval or denial or any single project is unlikely to significantly affect the rate of extraction of the oil in the oil sands or the refining of heavy crude on the U.S. gulf coast,” it was based on “a set of assumptions” that could change over time. Those assumptions included pipeline capacity, the price of oil and the costs of both transportation and oil sands development.

Oil industry officials welcomed the fact that the agency had affirmed the idea the pipeline decision did not have a major climate impact. In June, President Obama said he would only sign off on the proposal if it “does not significantly exacerbate the climate problem.”

“Five years, five federal reviews, dozens of public meetings, over a million comments and one conclusion ? the Keystone XL pipeline is safe for the environment,” American Petroleum Institute president Jack Gerard said in a statement. “This final review puts to rest any credible concerns about the pipeline’s potential negative impact on the environment. This long awaited project should now be swiftly approved.”

“Time and time again, State reaches the same conclusion despite the unprecedented and thorough environmental review,” added Cindy Schild, API’s senior manager for oil sands policy. Schild added that there are nine criteria for determining whether a project like this serves the national interest, and that API expected Keystone XL to qualify. “When you look at the nine criteria, it is hard to figure out how they could conclude that it is not in the national interest,” she said.

But in many ways the high-profile decision is just entering a new phase, in which Kerry and his deputies will field both public comments and internal feedback from eight agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and Defense and Energy Departments. The State Department will open a 30-day comment period on Feb. 5, and the agencies will have 90 days to weigh in. After a decision is issued other agencies have 15 days to object, and if one does, the president must decide whether or not to issue the permit.

The EPA has repeatedly questioned whether the State Department has given sufficient weight to the project’s negative environmental impact. The final environmental impact statement notes that bitumen, the substance that is extracted in Canada and diluted in order to be transported to U.S. refineries, is more difficult to clean up than lighter crude when it spills.

The report also concludes that crude from the oil sands is 17 percent higher in greenhouse gas emissions than the average crude oil used in the U.S., but between 2 and 10 percent higher than the heavy crude it would be replacing at Gulf Coast refineries.

When asked Friday whether the president will directly weigh in on the decision, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, “There’s a long-term process in place to determine whether projects like this are in the national interest.”

“At this point, the process is now at the State Department and we’re going to let that run its course,” Carney added.

The administration has significant flexibility in when it would issue a final national interest determination on the project: the State Department could issue a decision either before the end of the 105-day agency comment period, or long afterwards.

The State Department official said Kerry “doesn’t really have any particular deadline... He’ll need to take the time he needs to take.”

Now, the attention turns to Kerry, whom the official says is “just diving in now” to the process. On Tuesday environmental groups are organizing a “Day of Action” where they plan to flood Kerry's office with phone calls and e-mails.

“To some extent Secretary Kerry has gotten a pass to date,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the League of Conservation Voters’ senior vice president for government affairs. “Now that changes. This is a really a pivot point, and this is a real opportunity for him to live up to the climate record he has established through his very accomplished career.”

TransCanada, the company behind Keystone XL, just began transporting heavy crude through the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. But it is still waiting for the State Department to decide whether to issue a permit for the 1,179-mile northern leg that would carry predominantly heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands, cross the border in Montana and run to the small town of Steele City, Neb.

“Regardless of what the EIS says, the Canadians have admitted that the amount of carbon they’re going to be releasing from the tar sands will increase Canada’s total emissions by 38 percent by 2030 instead of reducing emissions when all the science says that’s what we need to do in order to avoid catastrophic climate change,” said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation.