EPA Criticizes Environmental Review of Keystone XL Pipeline

The agency responds to the State Department's draft report, which concluded the project would have a minimal impact.

(LOS ANGELES LA Times) - The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday criticized the State Department's environmental impact review of the Keystone XL pipeline, saying there was not enough evidence to back up key conclusions on gas emissions, safety and alternative routes.

State Department officials, the agency said it had "environmental objections" to their review, which concluded the pipeline would have minimal impact on the environment. The analysis could complicate efforts to win approval for the controversial $7-billion project.

A State Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If approved, Keystone XL would carry crude oil along a 1,700-mile route from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Shawn Howard, a spokesman for the pipeline's owner, TransCanada, said, "We have not seen that comment so I can't respond to it specifically."

"The Environmental Protection Agency's letter shows that despite multiple tries, the State Department is incapable of doing a proper analysis of the climate, wildlife, clean water, safety and other impacts of this disastrous and unneeded project," said Jim Murphy, the National Wildlife Federation's senior counsel. "President Obama has more than enough information to determine the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in America's national interest and he should reject it."

The EPA's assessment comes during the public comment period for the draft report, a detailed look at the effects of the proposed pipeline on air, water, endangered species, communities and the economy.

The EPA's comments are important because a negative analysis of the final State Department report could raise barriers to the project's approval. The objections could also end up as supporting evidence in litigation against the pipeline if it is approved.

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Roger E Butow April 27, 2013 2:40 pm (Pacific time)

Here's the online linkage to that CNN site, it's a non-partisan eye opener and heart breaker. .....maybe Anonymous should go down there and hector the Gulf fishermen regarding macro/micro economics instead of trolling blogs to spew venom?

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/27/us/gulf-disaster-fishing-industry/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

Roger E. Butow April 27, 2013 5:06 am (Pacific time)

Anonymous April 24:
And you, like most who post anonymously, know a lot about cowardice by not posting in your true name.
Then too you seem like most of those, like Judas, who'll trade a little up front $$$ for, cutting corners, for back end mortality of others, extirpation and eradication. You think that humans are worth more than the rest of the planet's species.
You'd sell America's environs, our heritage, for so little gain. yet extirpated ecosystems have no value upper limit---So I'm not the one who doesn't understand economics, I know how much bioremediation costs in terms of $$$, etc.
Notice the stories coming out of the Gulf oil spill recently?
3 years later and the fishing industry has been decimated---There's a great educational article posted by online CNN interviewing these people.
Oh, I forgot, everything's peachy-keen down there, the economy's just fine, thriving, right? So NOW who doesn't get it?
And as I've written before, I swear under penalty of perjury that I am not, nor ever have been a registered Democrat.
PS: Congress and Democrat are formal nouns, spelled with a capital letter, or did you use all lower case out of parsimony? You seem to know little about common spelling, grammar and mechanics. You seem a perfect fit for the sub-species we call Blog Troll.

Anonymous April 24, 2013 8:17 am (Pacific time)

Roger you seem to know very little about the energy industry along with macro/micro economics. You seem like a perfect fit to run for congress as a democrat.

Roger E. Butow April 23, 2013 1:28 pm (Pacific time)

Tim:
Thanks for posting this per my request. And thanks too for noting my multiple ODD MAN OUT columns for S-N on the subject. It's obvious that the mythologies, really lies, propagated about the merits of this monstrosity still get circulated.
It does NOT put Americans to work, it puts a few thousand Canadian oil employees on American soil, then taking/sending their $$$ back home.
It isn't intended for American petro-markets---It just helps nation's like China destroy their country ( and the globe) more quickly.
Ah, we will make a little $$$---Providing slave wages to remediation crews and of course free labor from protectionist NGOs (think Gulf oil spill) who start cleaning up the mess once a calamitous disruption has occurred.
And using benzene as a thinner, under pressure, XL Pipeline, catastrophe is thy name.
Speaking of which, has it occurred to anyone that these types of monolithic ecology-destroyers are prime terrorist targets: Blow this baby up at a major stream transit and that's all she wrote. Dead stream to its discharge point, possibly contaminated aquifer, dead ecosystems, endless legal disputes and eternal abatement/bio-remediation.
And talk about disingenuous, the INSTALLATION might have only moderate impacts, but a breach would have impacts that can't be reversed. Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) aren't called persistent for nothing.
I gave up on Obama (and our Governor Moonbeam here in California) long ago. Whoring your state or your country out for a few pieces of silver has historical precedence.
Canada obviously doesn't give a rat's ass, they'd sell their own Mother's (Earth), $$$ is now their bottom line, maybe they caught that dreaded disease from us, the world's scapegoat?
Kids look at the dance The Twist and observe "WTF were they thinking?"
Our children or grandchildren will be doing the same regarding this project---Heck, if we're REAL lucky, it'll collapse/break monumentally in some fashion during OUR lifetime, you can watch it slowly destroy our midland on CNN every freaking night for months...Dirty laundry.
What great visionary and protective leadership, what a great nation we once were...Now we're just a nation of corporate salesmen and politicians that would sell out their own families heritage.

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