Written By: David Bakhshaee
News Editor
The United States is currently contemplating whether a $13 billion Keystone pipeline system is in the nation’s best national interest regarding the environment and national security. The Keystone Pipeline Project, if approved by the Obama Administration, will play a pivotal function in joining Canadian crude oil with the United States’ biggest refining markets. The pipeline was first proposed by TransCanada Corporation on Feb. 9, 2005. The initial proposal was met by intense rejections and hostilities; Nevertheless the National Energy Board of Canada which is Canada’s economic regulatory agency eventually approved the project.
TransCanada Corporation is one of North America’s largest energy companies based in Calgary, Alberta. Canada is appraised as having roughly 175 billion barrels of retrievable oil and could potentially decrease the United States’ crude oil imports from OPEC countries by 18 percent.
In June 2010, the company authorized and initiated the first stage of the Keystone pipeline system. The first phase was accentuated by the conversion of natural gas pipeline into crude oil pipeline. The first phase also included the construction of a “bullet line” that delivers the crude oil non-stop from Canada to market hubs in the U.S., specifically the Midwest.
Phase two of the pipeline went into service February of this year. The second phase brought the pipeline from Steele City, Nebraska to Cushing, Oklahoma. The proposed Keystone Gulf Coast Expansion Project, better known as the Keystone XL Project, is phase three of the pipeline and is currently under national debate. The expansion would increase the pipeline by 1,661 miles, and would originate in Hardisty, Alberta.
The proposed project would infiltrate several state boundaries. If the project is in fact completed, the states to be affected are Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Due to the magnitude of this project and the potential environmental threats, many leaders have stepped forward and voiced their distresses. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman urged President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to forbid a federal authorization for the pipeline that would carry Canadian oil over an essential aquifer that supplies drinking water and irrigation water to several states.
Heineman said he approves pipeline projects but opposes the Keystone XL route because it passes over the Ogallala aquifer. Heineman wrote to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton expressing his concerns.
“This resource is the lifeblood of Nebraska’s agricultural economy,” said Heineman. “Cash receipts from farm markets contribute over $17 billion to Nebraska’s economy annually. I am concerned that the proposed pipeline will have potentially detrimental effects on this valuable natural resource and Nebraska’s economy.”
Other Nebraskans such as Randy Thompson are stepping into the national debate. Randy Thompson, a 63 year-old Republican-voting rancher, worries that the pipeline could cause severe harm to the Sand Hills Region, a colossal wetland where the Ogallala aquifer runs a few feet below the surface at times. “You are talking about potentially ruining people’s lives”, he says.
Nebraskan landowners and political leaders are not the only people opposed to this monumental project. Several Nobel Peace Prize winners have banded together to show their opposition to the pipeline. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Jose Ramos-Horta, Jody Williams and Shirin Ebadi were among those who wrote and signed a letter rejecting the pipeline. The letter was sent directly to President Barack Obama. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
The letter stated that renouncing the Keystone XL pipeline would present “a tremendous opportunity” to set about a transformation “away from our dependence on oil, coal and gas and instead increase investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency”, the Nobel winners said in the letter. “This will be your legacy to Americans and the global community: energy that sustains the lives and livelihoods of future generations.”
Environmentalists also oppose the pipeline being constructed, citing greenhouse gas emissions and dangers of a spill along the 1,711 mile route. Alberta oil is separated from clay and sand in a procedure that uses intense heat, releasing more greenhouse gases than pumping conventional crude. More than 1,200 pipeline protestors were arrested outside of the White House in the past month.
Among those arrested was Gus Speth. Speth is the former chair of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality under President Jimmy Carter and co-founder of the environmental group National Resources Defense Council.
“If we hook up the Alberta tar sands to America’s insatiable lust of gasoline, I worry that you can just kiss the planet goodbye,” said Speth before his arrest.
TransCanada said the pipeline would provide jobs to an ailing American economy and supply conflict free crude oil at a time when global supplies are unstable.
“The real issue here is that the U.S. needs crude oil”, said Terry Cunha, a spokesman for TransCanada. “They must make a decision, import conflict free crude oil from Canada or import it from repressive regimes like the Middle East or Libya.”
The State Department is currently reviewing the pipeline proposal along with President Obama and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. The administration plans to make a decision on whether to green light the project by the end of 2011.
