Drawing a Line In the Oil Sands
by P.J. Sullivan
Since President Bush signed an executive order in 2004 to require presidential approval of any oil pipeline crossing the U.S. border, eight applications have been processed, with an average review time of 478 days. The outlier is the still-pending Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas.
TransCanada Corp. applied for permission to build the pipeline two months before Barack Obama was elected president, and the matter is likely to outlast his presidency. Though Obama has made climate change and the environment a major agenda point in the final stretch of his tenure, the always-cautious president has hedged his bets, signing off on Arctic oil exploration even as he plans a visit to the region to talk about the need for greater regulation.
While Republican presidential contenders are unanimous in their support for the $8 billion project, Hillary Clinton — who dealt with the matter as secretary of state — has rather awkwardly declined to comment, saying in New Hampshire in late July, “If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.”
So the issue will persist throughout the 2016 campaign. But should the 1,179-mile pipeline be built?
There are arguments in its favor. After all, a U.S. rejection would not keep the tar sands oil in the ground. Canadian producers would most likely ship it from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico by rail, which is more dangerous and more polluting. And if the U.S. somehow banned the import altogether, TransCanada could simply sell to oil-starved China, where environmental regulations are much weaker than in the U.S.
Proponents therefore conclude that not building the pipeline would be worse for the environment than building it. But that is an oversimplification. The pipeline would cross more than 1,000 U.S. rivers, streams, and lakes, and run within a mile of more than 3,000 wells in Heartland farming states. A 2010 tar sands spill in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River took nearly five years to clean up, and Keystone could exponentially exacerbate such risks.
Those spills will happen. TransCanada said its Keystone 1 pipeline would likely suffer a spill just once in seven years. But in its first year of operation, the pipeline had 12 spills, and has continued to spill since then.
And while rail oil transport is dangerous, tar sands production is hardly eco-friendly. Some opponents have estimated that the carbon pollution from the project would be the equivalent of Americans driving 60 billion extra miles per year.
It would also not create jobs. TransCanada has admitted that after the initial construction boom, Keystone would produce just 35 new permanent American jobs. Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute has actually said Keystone could mean a net job loss in the U.S. due to the impact of spills and other environmental damage.
Perhaps the best argument against Keystone is that it would yet again postpone planning for a post-oil energy world. Even if tar sands extraction was clean (which is isn’t), and even if the pipeline were accident-proof (which it wouldn’t be), eventually the world will run out of petroleum. That is an issue we need to confront, and that should be a part of the 2016 campaign debate.
Former NASA climate scientist James Hansen has said that Keystone would be the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet,” and its construction would mean “game over” for the environment. Perhaps this is overwrought. But as Hansen also said, “Canada is going to sell its dope, if it can find a buyer,” and Obama has “decided he is a hopeless addict.”
Keystone XL would neither in itself save the U.S. economy nor destroy the planet. But because it has been debated for so long, it has become the most salient symbol of the climate debate. It is time to draw a line in the oil sands and say, no more.
P.J. Sullivan is a journalist and theater artist residing in Washington, D.C.
Photo shannonpatrick17 from Swanton, Nebraska, U.S.A. (keystone pipeline) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons