Battle lines have been hardening over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline over the last couple of weeks. The pipeline, which will stretch from Alberta in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast, would nearly double the United States’ capacity to import oil made from Canadian oil sands. Canadian oil sands are a plentiful and secure source of oil, but the extraction process is high in carbon dioxide emissions and takes a toll on pristine Canadian forest ecosystems.  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will soon have to decide whether to allow the pipeline construction to proceed next year, and the State Department is -– once again -– studying the potential environmental impact. Environmental groups and a host of government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, had judged an earlier evaluation inadequate.  The heat is on Mrs. Clinton as she tries to balance competing demands. At an event in San Francisco last month, she implied that she was looking favorably on the proposal, although the department’s environmental analysis is continuing. This is what she said:  “We’ve not yet signed off on it. But we are inclined to do so, and we are for several reasons -– going back to one of your original questions –- we’re either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the 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 our planet. I mean, I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone how deeply disappointed the president and I are about our inability to get the kind of legislation through the Senate that the United States was seeking.”  Her remarks set off a new round of jockeying, with all sides wanting their opinions heard.  Last week, 11 Democratic Senators seemed to be urging a “no” vote based on climate considerations. In a letter to Mrs. Clinton, they noted that greater reliance on a type of oil known for generating high levels of greenhouse gas emissions would run counter to the Obama administration’s stated clean energy goals. “Approval of this pipeline will significantly increase our dependence on this oil for decades,” it said.  Meanwhile, more conservative Midwestern senators raised other types of environmental concerns. The Keystone XL would run underground through prime Midwestern farmland, including the heartland’s largest aquifer. Both Senator Mike Johanns (Republican) and Senator Ben Nelson (Democrat) of Nebraska say they worry that a spill or accidents would contaminate drinking water, pastures and crops in their state.  “They could not have picked more sensitive areas than exactly where they are running this pipe,” Mr. Johanns said. “This pipe will lay in water. So I don’t know what they were thinking.”  Environmental groups, like the National Resources Defense Council, took the opportunity to reiterate their longstanding opposition to oil sands, which are also referred to as tar sands, and to urge the administration to take the environment as well as economics into consideration.  “The State Department’s energy security argument is that this pipeline would in fact open up the first significant international market for tar sands oil,” Liz Barratt-Brown, a senior attorney at the council, pointed out.  Big labor unions said they favor the project because it would create up to 116,000 jobs at a time of economics hardship and sent a letter to Mrs. Clinton urging approval.  “All four of our International Unions — the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Laborers’ International Union of North America — have executed a project labor agreement to build the Keystone XL Pipeline,” they said in a news release last week.  “We are committed to making Keystone XL a reality for our nation, and we are prepared to begin work as soon as the Presidential Permit for the $7 billion privately funded Keystone XL pipeline is approved,” they wrote.
A group of Democratic senators and both of Nebraska's senators express deep worry about its environmental impact; four labor unions urge quick approval.