Tag: Keystone XL

Keystone Pipeline, Jobs, and Confusion

Perhaps “haste makes waste” explains the jumble of contradictory statements coming from President Trump with regard to the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline projects. Or maybe not?? Trump gives green light to Dakota Access Keystone XL oil pipelines. Trump’s trade and jobs rhetoric continues to alarm free market conservatives as well as our trading partners abroad (see the comments coming from a bewildered Germany wondering how to best protect their interests as Trump pursues what he—mistakenly—considered America’s interests).

The pipelines will save jobs (yes save jobs), improve safety, and reduce environmental risks compared with the existing alternatives of rail and trucking. Obama’s State Department reviews, which cleared the Keystone XL project multiple times, concluded in its final review that the Canadian oil in question was coming out of the ground with or without the Keystone XL pipeline and thus there would be no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions from the pipeline. https://keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/documents/organization/221135.pdf

The same is true for the Dakota Access pipeline, the final 1,100 feet of which (of the 1,171 mile project) have been stopped because of objections by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe that it would “disturb sacred burial and archaeological sites.” WaPo.

On Tuesday, Trump said: “From now on, we’re going to be making pipeline in the United States. We build the pipelines, we want to build the pipe. We’re going to put a lot of workers, a lot of skilled workers, back to work. We will build our own pipeline, we will build our own pipes, like we used to in the old days.” WaPo

I am increasingly inclined to think that Trump’s blatant misrepresentations of the impact of his “Buy American, hire American” mantra is sinister demagoguery. TransCanada, the Canadian project owner had already planned to buy 65% of the steel pipe from U.S. manufacturers as a purely business decision. Replacing the remaining 35% with American made pipes would increase the cost of the project. It would also redeploy American workers from their current, presumable more productive, employment to make these pipes. It is hard to see what Trump doesn’t get about efficiency and productivity as a source of our wealth. If he insists on doing it “like we used to in the old days,” he will make us poorer as “in the old days.”

“Opponents of the pipeline dismissed the job numbers and economic impacts, arguing that pipelines will create only “a handful” of permanent jobs.

“But the fact that pipelines only have a handful of permanent workers simply conveys how remarkably efficient pipelines are. The high output of labor generates value and wealth and frees up Americans to be more productive elsewhere in the economy.” http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/24/trumps-pipeline-approvals-are-a-win-for-the-economy-and-environment/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RJeFlqaGpNamt3TkdOayIsInQiOiJTSnpZZExnVUdLOThQdW5ESnNPNDlIUHByWXFXNSs3bEFDa0VFOHVCbnhTOUtnbTBMWnd6MEkxTkdhRHpCVjU5a0JhQ2EraVZWTVVOcXlJVzVpMkVQVm9OWkJcL29VOEpkdG93RllJeldNNVBpem9KbHlPTWlOOFRJSkVEM3FyR1QifQ%3D%3D

 

 

Keystone XL pipeline madness

By his own admission President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline project is political rather than scientific.

Two environmental concerns have been raised. The first is that the emissions of greenhouse gases are about 17% higher for oil from oil sands compared to conventional sources. However, the rejection of the pipeline proposal will not materially change the production and consumption of Canada’s oil shale crude, which will now be transported to market by more expensive means. “Rail transport has expanded to carry oil sands to the United States, soaring from just 16,000 barrels in 2010 to 51.2 million barrels in 2014 before dropping somewhat this year. But rail transport is more expensive than pipeline transport…. Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, said last year that the company had bid for space on another pipeline to move its oil-sands crude to Canada’s east coast and from there to world markets, including Gulf Coast refiners. ‘We’re covered. I’m good,’ he said in an interview. He said that ‘the argument that Keystone is a bad idea because it will somehow enable development of resources in Canada is to some extent flawed,’ adding that other alternatives would emerge.” (This and other quotes are from today’s Washington Post in the article linked below)

The second environmental concern arises from the possibility of oil spills from breaks in the pipeline. This possibility needs to be compared with the possibility of spills from rail accidents or breaks in alternative pipelines.

Because the pipeline would cross international boundaries it must be approved by the State Department. As the application was being reviewed, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated on October 15, 2010 that the department was “inclined” to approve project. “We’re either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada,” she said. On August 26, 2011 the State Department issued its final environmental impact statement determining “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed project corridor.” And again on March 1, 2013 the State Department issued another environmental review that raised no major objections to the Keystone XL oil pipeline saying that other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries were worse for climate change.

Canada’s new liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, supported the project. “TransCanada’s president and chief executive, Russ Girling, issued a statement saying his company was ‘disappointed. Today, misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science — rhetoric won out over reason,’ Girling said…. Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said Friday that ‘Obama has also solidified a legacy as a pompous, pandering job killer.’” (same Post article).

“As Obama rode from the White House to the campus [Georgetown on June 25, 2013, he], said he would approve Keystone XL only ‘if it does not significantly exacerbate the climate problem.’” But his own State Department found that it does not. So what is going on?

“By late 2013, Obama and Kerry had concluded that the pipeline failed their climate test — not because blocking it would guarantee that Canada’s fossil fuels would remain in the ground, but because denying the permit would strengthen America’s position in international climate negotiations…. ‘The reality is that this decision could not be made solely on the numbers — jobs that would be created, dirty fuel that would be transported here, or carbon pollution that would ultimately be unleashed,’ Kerry said in a statement. ‘The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves.’”

In short the President lied (not an uncommon practice among politicians, but we might hope for a higher standard from American Presidents). But apparently not. The Obama administration has authorized the selling of coal owned by the U.S. government that would not meet our C02 emission standards to third world countries, which helps our emission record but not the world’s. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-exports-its-greenhouse-gas-emissions–as-coal-profitable-coal/2015/10/08/05711c92-65fc-11e5-bdb6-6861f4521205_story.html

“The Washington Post’s editorial on the pipeline today began: “President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline on Friday, ending an unseemly political dispute marked by activist hysteria, GOP hyperbole, presidential weakness and a general incapability of various sides to see the policy question for what it was: a mundane infrastructure approval that didn’t pose a high threat to the environment but also didn’t promise much economic development. The politicization of this regulatory decision, and the consequent warping of the issue to the point that it was described in existential terms, was a national embarrassment, reflecting poorly on the United States’ capability to treat parties equitably under law and regulation.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/11/06/obama-ditches-evidence-to-capitulate-on-keystone-xl/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/11/06/obama-set-to-reject-keystone-xl-project-citing-climate-concerns/