The State Department’s long-awaited environmental report on the Keystone XL pipeline leaves President Barack Obama with no real scientific reason to reject the nation’s most fiercely debated energy project.
The sprawling 2,000-page report, released late Friday afternoon, doesn’t issue a clear yea or nay on a sprawling section of pipeline that would traverse from western Canada to Oklahoma. But the report’s key takeaways — including a conclusion that the project would have “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route” — Obama may have been hemmed in by his own State Department experts.
Environmentalists were left sputtering Friday while pro-pipeline forces in Congress and industry insisted that this should leave no doubt that the pipeline can be built safely and provide for jobs and a fresh source of North American energy.
“Today’s report again makes clear there is no reason for this critical pipeline to be blocked one more day,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “After four years of needless delays, it is time for President Obama to stand up for middle-class jobs and energy security and approve the Keystone pipeline.”
The report also counters warnings from environmentalists that the pipeline’s construction would spur a huge increase in production from western Canada’s tar sands, believed to be one of the biggest reserves of crude oil outside Saudi Arabia — unleashing torrents of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
TVNL Comment: Utter nonsense... but surely profitable for the energy folks. What would constitute a "significant' impact? Wake up, America.
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