Summit County Citizens Voice

The Keystone XL Pipeline proposal is back.

TransCanada seeking permit for revised pipeline route; Feds to launch supplemental environmental study

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Federal and state agencies will once again start a review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal, designed to transport crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and the Williston Basin to existing pipeline facilities near Steele City, Nebraska for onward transport to markets in the Texas Gulf Coast area.

The latest version of the plan shows the pipeline following a revised route from the Canadian border in Phillips County, Montana to Steele City, Nebraska.

The new route avoids the Sand Hills region of Nebraska. Additionally, TransCanada has split the pipeline plan into two separate pieces and says it will build the second segment, from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast of Texas, as an independent project.

The Oklahoma segment had previously been included in the Keystone XL proposal but it’s not part of the latest version of the plan.

The pipeline proposal became a focal point for a broader ideological debate over energy policy, and the latest iteration, which will be percolating as the presidential campaign heats up.

Conservation groups aren’t any more excited about the new proposal than the original plan.

“Keystone XL is a commitment to dirty fuels and pollution for decades.  The State Department needs to avoid the profound errors of the past and perform a thorough and serious environmental review,” said the National Wildlife Federation’s director of climate and energy policy Joe Mendelson.

“For starters, State Department must thoroughly analyze the safety issues involved with transporting corrosive tar sands in pipeline, account for the increased carbon emissions that will speed global warming, risks to endangered species and important habitat, protection of our vital water supply, while performing a full and respectful consultation with indigenous tribes.”

NWF will participate in the process and have more details in the coming weeks. The notice is here:

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/06/15/2012-14803/notice-of-intent-to-prepare-a-supplemental-environmental-impact-statement-seis-and-to-conduct

Filed under: energy, Environment Tagged: | energy, Environment, Keystone XL pipeline, New Keystone XL pipeline plan, Tar sands oil, TransCanada