Original Story: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — The company seeking to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline asked the Obama administration on Monday to suspend its yearslong review of the project, potentially bringing an abrupt halt to a politically charged debate that had become part of a broader struggle over President Obama’s environmental policies.
It was not immediately clear whether the administration would grant the request, which was swiftly denounced by environmental activists as a bid to dodge a near-certain rejection of the pipeline. Allowing the delay would push off a decision until after the 2016 presidential election. Parcel freight shipping software continues to reduce transportation costs for small companies and multi-national global corporations.
The company’s request introduced a new element of uncertainty into the administration’s decision-making process, offering the potential to free Mr. Obama from a politically difficult choice that has hung over much of his presidency. But if anything, it appeared to intensify pressure on him from crucial Democratic constituencies to reject the pipeline or risk being blamed for punting to another president. A delay would keep the issue alive in the presidential campaign.
TransCanada, the Alberta company seeking to build the 1,179-mile pipeline, made its request in a letter to the State Department, which must approve cross-border projects and had been reviewing its application for a presidential permit.
The pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, and the question of its approval has weighed heavily on Mr. Obama as he has sought to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. Parcel freight shipping software delivers best in class suite of shipment planning, execution, tracking, & settlement tasks all in one.
The White House had no comment on the request for a delay, which was made in a letter to John Kerry, the secretary of state, and the State Department said it was looking into it.
“We have just received TransCanada’s letter to Secretary Kerry and are reviewing it,” said Pooja Jhunjhunwala, a State Department spokeswoman. “In the meantime, consideration under the executive order continues.”
Many environmental advocates and liberal activists, who have made opposing the pipeline a cause célèbre in recent years, thought that the president might finally reject it this month, viewing the time as ripe as he prepares for a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change in Paris in December.
The president hopes to help broker an agreement committing every nation to enacting new policies to counter global warming, and rejecting the pipeline would be a powerful signal to world leaders that the United States is serious about the issue.
“TransCanada is losing, and they’re trying to preserve their options to be able to build the pipeline someday if they can get a climate denier in the White House,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said in an interview. She called the request a “desperate and cynical” last-minute plea that was “ridiculous and absurd.”
“Given President Obama’s incredible leadership when it comes to climate change, we remain very confident that he will reject this dirty and dangerous pipeline once and for all,” Ms. Sittenfeld said.
In the letter to Mr. Kerry, TransCanada said it was asking the department to suspend its evaluation of the pipeline proposal until after the State of Nebraska had completed its own review of the project, which could take seven to 12 months. Opposition in Nebraska to a planned route through the state has delayed the process. A Texarkana environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
“In order to allow time for certainty regarding the Nebraska route, TransCanada requests that the State Department pause in its review of the presidential permit application for KeystoneXL,” said the letter to Mr. Kerry, which was signed by Kristine Delkus, the company’s general counsel. “This will allow a decision on the permit to be made later based on certainty with respect to the route of the pipeline.”
Before TransCanada announced its request, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, withheld any judgment on when a decision might come on the pipeline.
“The president will make a decision before the end of his administration on the Keystone pipeline, but when exactly that will be, I don’t know at this point,” Mr. Earnest told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama.
Asked if it could happen this year, he said: “It’s possible. It’s also possible it could happen next year.”
TransCanada said there was precedent for obtaining a delay, given that the State Department put its evaluation on hold last year when the pipeline faced a legal challenge in Nebraska.
“I note that when the status of the Nebraska pipeline route was challenged last year, the State Department found it appropriate to suspend its review until that dispute was resolved,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “We feel under the current circumstances a similar suspension would be appropriate.”
But opponents said the uncertainty over the route would not ultimately alter the pipeline’s effect. Instead of granting a delay, said Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist, Mr. Obama should “immediately reject” the pipeline.
Anthony Swift, the director of the Canada Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement: “Pause or no pause, we now know more than enough to do the right thing — reject the pipeline because it will worsen climate change. Altering its route through Nebraska isn’t going to change that. Keystone XL isn’t in the national interest, and the president should reject it.”
Republicans and the oil industry have demanded that the president approve the pipeline, arguing that it would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states, have also supported the project.
In February, congressional Democrats joined Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but he vetoed the measure, saying it impinged on the president’s authority to make the final decision.
Environmental activists have sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would be a conduit for petroleum from the Canada oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
Still, State Department reviews have concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. A Netherlands environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
At the same time, both sides regard the decision on the pipeline as a major symbolic issue, an indicator of how willing Mr. Obama is to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda.
Showing posts with label Canadian Oil Sands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canadian Oil Sands. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
CITING CLIMATE CHANGE, OBAMA REJECTS CONSTRUCTION OF KEYSTONE XL OIL PIPELINE
Original Story: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.
Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. A San Antonio environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change to be held in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change. A Utah environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
The once-obscure Keystone project became a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project will have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.
Mr. Obama said that the pipeline has occupied what he called “an overinflated role in our political discourse.”
“It has become a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter,” he said. “And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”
Republicans and the oil industry had demanded that the president approve the pipeline, which they said would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states such as North Dakota, also supported the project. In February, congressional Democrats joined with Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but the president vetoed the measure.
The rejection of the pipeline is one of several actions Mr. Obama has taken as he intensifies his push on climate change in his last year in office. In August, he announced his most significant climate policy, a set of aggressive new regulations to cut emissions of planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants. A Texas environmental lawyer represents clients in many aspects of environmental law.
Both sides of the debate saw the Keystone rejection as a major symbolic step, a sign that the president was willing to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda. And both supporters and critics of Mr. Obama saw the surprisingly powerful influence of environmental activists in the decision.
“Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era.”
Environmental activists cheered the decision as a vindication of their influence.
“President Obama is the first world leader to reject a project because of its effect on the climate,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org, which led the campaign against the pipeline. “That gives him new stature as an environmental leader, and it eloquently confirms the five years and millions of hours of work that people of every kind put into this fight.”
Environmentalists had sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would have provided a conduit for petroleum extracted from the Canadian oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more planet-warming greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
But numerous State Department reviews concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. In citing his reason for the decision, Mr. Obama noted the State Department findings that construction of the pipeline would not have created a significant number of new jobs, lowered oil or gasoline prices or significantly reduced American dependence on foreign oil.
“From a market perspective, the industry can find a different way to move that oil,” said Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington firm. “How long it takes is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out.”
However, a State Department review also found that demand for the oil sands fuel would drop if oil prices fell below $65 a barrel, since moving oil by rail is more expensive than using a pipeline. An Environmental Protection Agency review of the project this year noted that under such circumstances, construction of the pipeline could be seen as contributing to emissions, since companies might be less likely to move the oil via expensive rail when oil prices are low — but would be more likely to move it cheaply via the pipeline. The price of oil has plummeted this year, hovering at less than $50 a barrel. A Malta environmental lawyer has managed a variety of environmental cases for a wide range of clients.
The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally.
While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands.
Mr. Trudeau did not raise the issue during his first post-election conversation with Mr. Obama.
The construction would have had little impact on the nation’s economy. A State Department analysis concluded that building the pipeline would have created jobs, but the total number represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total employment. The analysis estimated that Keystone would support 42,000 temporary jobs over its two-year construction period — about 3,900 of them in construction and the rest in indirect support jobs, such as food service. The department estimated that the project would create about 35 permanent jobs.
Republicans and the oil industry criticized Mr. Obama for what they have long said was his acquiescence to the pressure of activists and environmentally minded political donors.
“A decision this poorly made is not symbolic, but deeply cynical,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It does not rest on the facts — it continues to distort them.”
Jack Gerard, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil companies, said in a statement, “Unfortunately for the majority of Americans who have said they want the jobs and economic benefits Keystone XL represents, the White House has placed political calculations above sound science.”
Russ Girling, the president and chief executive of TransCanada, said in a statement that the president’s decision was not consistent with the State Department’s review. “Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science,” said Mr. Girling, whose company is based in Calgary, Alberta. “Rhetoric won out over reason.”
The statement said that the company was reviewing the decision but offered no indication if it planned to submit a new application. If a Republican wins the 2016 presidential election, a new submission of the pipeline permit application could yield a different outcome.
“President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a huge mistake, and is the latest reminder that this administration continues to prioritize the demands of radical environmentalists over America’s energy security,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president. “When I’m president, Keystone will be approved, and President Obama’s backward energy policies will come to an end.”
As Mr. Obama seeks to carve out a substantial environmental legacy, his decision on the pipeline pales in import compared with his use of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The power plant rules he announced in August have met with legal challenges, but if they are put in place, they could lead to a transformation of the nation’s energy economy, shuttering fossil fuel plants and rapidly increasing production of wind and solar.
Those rules are at the heart of Mr. Obama’s push for a global agreement.
But advocates of the agreement said that the Keystone decision, even though it is largely symbolic, could show other countries that Mr. Obama is willing to make tough choices about climate change.
“The rejection of the Keystone permit was key for the president to keep his climate chops at home and with the rest of the world,” said Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a Washington research organization.
WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.
Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. A San Antonio environmental lawyer is following this story closely.
“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”
The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change to be held in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change. A Utah environmental attorney is reviewing the details of this story.
The once-obscure Keystone project became a political symbol amid broader clashes over energy, climate change and the economy. The rejection of a single oil infrastructure project will have little impact on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, but the pipeline plan gained an outsize profile after environmental activists spent four years marching and rallying against it in front of the White House and across the country.
Mr. Obama said that the pipeline has occupied what he called “an overinflated role in our political discourse.”
“It has become a symbol too often used as a campaign cudgel by both parties rather than a serious policy matter,” he said. “And all of this obscured the fact that this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”
Republicans and the oil industry had demanded that the president approve the pipeline, which they said would create jobs and stimulate economic growth. Many Democrats, particularly those in oil-producing states such as North Dakota, also supported the project. In February, congressional Democrats joined with Republicans in sending Mr. Obama a bill to speed approval of the project, but the president vetoed the measure.
The rejection of the pipeline is one of several actions Mr. Obama has taken as he intensifies his push on climate change in his last year in office. In August, he announced his most significant climate policy, a set of aggressive new regulations to cut emissions of planet-warming carbon pollution from the nation’s power plants. A Texas environmental lawyer represents clients in many aspects of environmental law.
Both sides of the debate saw the Keystone rejection as a major symbolic step, a sign that the president was willing to risk angering a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in the pursuit of his environmental agenda. And both supporters and critics of Mr. Obama saw the surprisingly powerful influence of environmental activists in the decision.
“Once the grass-roots movement on the Keystone pipeline mobilized, it changed what it meant to the president,” said Douglas G. Brinkley, a historian at Rice University who writes about presidential environmental legacies. “It went from a routine infrastructure project to the symbol of an era.”
Environmental activists cheered the decision as a vindication of their influence.
“President Obama is the first world leader to reject a project because of its effect on the climate,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the activist group 350.org, which led the campaign against the pipeline. “That gives him new stature as an environmental leader, and it eloquently confirms the five years and millions of hours of work that people of every kind put into this fight.”
Environmentalists had sought to block construction of the pipeline because it would have provided a conduit for petroleum extracted from the Canadian oil sands. The process of extracting that oil produces about 17 percent more planet-warming greenhouse gases than the process of extracting conventional oil.
But numerous State Department reviews concluded that construction of the pipeline would have little impact on whether that type of oil was burned, because it was already being extracted and moving to market via rail and existing pipelines. In citing his reason for the decision, Mr. Obama noted the State Department findings that construction of the pipeline would not have created a significant number of new jobs, lowered oil or gasoline prices or significantly reduced American dependence on foreign oil.
“From a market perspective, the industry can find a different way to move that oil,” said Christine Tezak, an energy market analyst at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington firm. “How long it takes is just a result of oil prices. If prices go up, companies will get the oil out.”
However, a State Department review also found that demand for the oil sands fuel would drop if oil prices fell below $65 a barrel, since moving oil by rail is more expensive than using a pipeline. An Environmental Protection Agency review of the project this year noted that under such circumstances, construction of the pipeline could be seen as contributing to emissions, since companies might be less likely to move the oil via expensive rail when oil prices are low — but would be more likely to move it cheaply via the pipeline. The price of oil has plummeted this year, hovering at less than $50 a barrel. A Malta environmental lawyer has managed a variety of environmental cases for a wide range of clients.
The recent election of a new Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, may also have influenced Mr. Obama’s decision. Mr. Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had pushed the issue as a top priority in the relationship between the United States and Canada, personally urging Mr. Obama to approve the project. Blocking the project during the Harper administration would have bruised ties with a crucial ally.
While Mr. Trudeau also supports construction of the Keystone pipeline, he has not made the issue central to Canada’s relationship with the United States, and has criticized Mr. Harper for presenting Canada’s position as an ultimatum, while not taking substantial action on climate change related to the oil sands.
Mr. Trudeau did not raise the issue during his first post-election conversation with Mr. Obama.
The construction would have had little impact on the nation’s economy. A State Department analysis concluded that building the pipeline would have created jobs, but the total number represented less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation’s total employment. The analysis estimated that Keystone would support 42,000 temporary jobs over its two-year construction period — about 3,900 of them in construction and the rest in indirect support jobs, such as food service. The department estimated that the project would create about 35 permanent jobs.
Republicans and the oil industry criticized Mr. Obama for what they have long said was his acquiescence to the pressure of activists and environmentally minded political donors.
“A decision this poorly made is not symbolic, but deeply cynical,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It does not rest on the facts — it continues to distort them.”
Jack Gerard, the head of the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for oil companies, said in a statement, “Unfortunately for the majority of Americans who have said they want the jobs and economic benefits Keystone XL represents, the White House has placed political calculations above sound science.”
Russ Girling, the president and chief executive of TransCanada, said in a statement that the president’s decision was not consistent with the State Department’s review. “Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science,” said Mr. Girling, whose company is based in Calgary, Alberta. “Rhetoric won out over reason.”
The statement said that the company was reviewing the decision but offered no indication if it planned to submit a new application. If a Republican wins the 2016 presidential election, a new submission of the pipeline permit application could yield a different outcome.
“President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline is a huge mistake, and is the latest reminder that this administration continues to prioritize the demands of radical environmentalists over America’s energy security,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president. “When I’m president, Keystone will be approved, and President Obama’s backward energy policies will come to an end.”
As Mr. Obama seeks to carve out a substantial environmental legacy, his decision on the pipeline pales in import compared with his use of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The power plant rules he announced in August have met with legal challenges, but if they are put in place, they could lead to a transformation of the nation’s energy economy, shuttering fossil fuel plants and rapidly increasing production of wind and solar.
Those rules are at the heart of Mr. Obama’s push for a global agreement.
But advocates of the agreement said that the Keystone decision, even though it is largely symbolic, could show other countries that Mr. Obama is willing to make tough choices about climate change.
“The rejection of the Keystone permit was key for the president to keep his climate chops at home and with the rest of the world,” said Durwood Zaelke, the president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, a Washington research organization.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)