Keystone XL Pipeline Events
Biden Kills Keystone XL Permit Again
Jan. 20, 2021 - President Biden formally announced on Wednesday he was revoking a key permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the second time a Democratic administration has scuttled the $8 billion project in less than a decade.
Biden's action was part of a series of executive orders on his first day in office that included revoking “permits signed over the past 4 years that do not serve the U.S. national interest, including revoking the Presidential permit granted to the Keystone XL pipeline.”
EPA Confirms Keystone XL
Fails President’s Climate Test
Feb. 3, 2015 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drove what may prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in comments released today, linking the project to an expansion of the tar sands and a significant increase in greenhouse case emissions.
The Keystone XL pipeline would have transported toxic tar sands from under Canada’s Boreal forest 2,000 miles to the Gulf of Mexico to be refined and exported. Approving the pipeline would bring increased production of one of the dirtiest, most polluting forms of oil over the coming decades. Note: Mouse over the NRDC logo for a map showimg the proposed pipeline route.
Tar sands oil is not only difficult, costly and energy-intensive to produce but also • dirtier and more corrosive than conventional oil. Leaks and spills threaten rivers, aquifers and communities all along the route.
Omaha Ne, Associated Press - Sept 5, 2012 -The latest proposed Keystone XL pipeline route is TransCanada's second attempt to satisfy state environmental regulators. The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality said in July that the initial revised route crossed land that could erode easily and passed near unconfined aquifers that supply drinking water to residents and livestock.
• Activists block Texas site
Washington Post/Bloomberg, July 27, 2012
The permits dealt a blow to efforts by national environmental groups to slow the momentum behind the southern leg of the project — now also known as the Gulf Coast project. Those groups, including Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, have urged their Texas supporters to send comments to the Army Corps, which governs pipeline permits there. The groups have highlighted dangers linked to wetlands and rivers.
A Crude Handful
From Inside Climate News, A Dilbit Primer: How It's Different from Conventional Oil?When emergency responders rushed to Marshall, Mich. on July 26, 2010, they found that the Kalamazoo River had been blackened by more than one million gallons of oil. They didn't discover until more than a week later that the ruptured pipeline had been carrying diluted bitumen, also known as dilbit, from Canada's tar sands region. Cleaning it up would challenge them in ways they had never imagined. Instead of taking a couple of months, as they originally expected, nearly two years later the job still isn't complete.
