U.S. report could be key to Keystone XL

Rumours swirl around release date from U.S. State Department

WASHINGTON — Supporters and foes of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline are bracing for the release of an environmental analysis from the U.S. government that could determine the fate of the $5.7-billion project.

While the report isn’t the final step, it’s eagerly anticipated because it will answer a question central to whether President Barack Obama approves the project: Would Keystone contribute significantly to climate change?

Obama has said he wouldn’t support the pipeline if it were found to substantially boost carbon-dioxide emissions that many scientists say are raising the Earth’s temperature.

“If that report comes out and it says Keystone is not going to have a significant climate impact, it will be hard for Obama to ignore his own agency’s finding,” said Ross Hammond, senior campaigner for Friends of the Earth, an environmental group based in Washington and Berkeley, Calif.

Keystone has emerged as a flashpoint in the debate over global warming. Like other pipeline critics, Hammond says Trans Canada’s proposed project poses a risk because it would encourage increased production from Alberta’s oilsands, a process that releases more carbon dioxide than the extraction of conventional forms of oil.

The State Department report won’t be the final word.

It will be followed by a separate, 90-day assessment to judge whether Keystone is in the U.S. national interest, a review that considers other factors, including economic impact.

The department, which has jurisdiction because the pipeline crosses an international border, said this week there isn’t a timeline for releasing the environmental analysis.

Anticipation is so high that rumours of the report’s release frequently swirl in Washington. Jim Murphy, a counsel at the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental group based in Reston, Va., said he hears every few weeks that it will come out imminently. Murphy said his best guess is that it will come out early next year. That would give the State Department enough time to address objections raised by critics, and the Environmental Protection Agency, to the draft released in March that found Keystone wouldn’t have a big impact on the climate, he said.

Supporters agree the environmental impact statement could be a momentous step in the Keystone saga, now in its sixth year. The pipeline has attracted interest from a wide range of groups, from labour unions and a Jewish rights organization to oil interests and environmentalists.

The report “will likely be the key indicator showing whether President Obama approves the project or not,” said Matt Dempsey, a spokesman for Oil Sands Fact Check, a group supported by oil producers in the U.S. and Canada. Dempsey said he expected the final environmental review to show Keystone is safe to build, as assessments of earlier iterations of the pipeline have found.