Schneiderman Wants to Know Climate Change Impacts of Pipeline

AG to feds: Assess climate impacts of Keystone XL 

Posted by Casey Seiler, Capitol bureau chief

(AP)

CapCon intern Shivani Gonzalez reports:

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants the U.S. State Department to hold off on a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline project until there is a full analysis on potential pollution and climate change consequences.

The proposed 875-mile pipeline would run between Alberta and Nebraska, and transport crude oil extracted from the Canadian sand tars. From there, the oil would be sent to the Gulf of Mexico for sale and refining.

The project is awaiting permits and other federal approvals — including a determination of whether it would serve national interest. The federal government has yet to make a decision because of the absence of a complete assessment of the climate change impacts — the same sort of study Schneiderman is seeking.

According to a release, the Attorney General’s office estimates that the pipeline would emit 605 to 3,740 million metric tons of additional climate change pollution over the pipelines anticipated 50-year lifespan. That would be two to 14 times New York’s total climate and emission pollution, and almost equal to the nation’s total pollution emissions for 2011.

Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York, said “it is smart to make it hard” to build the pipeline because of the climate change concerns.

Schneiderman believes the State Department’s final environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL — issued Jan. 31 — failed to acknowledge the amount of climate change pollution that would be emitted. The AG’s office called that EIS “arbitrary and capricious” in comments it submitted for the review.

The AG’s office, like those in many states downwind of midwestern air pollution, has taken an active and frequently litigious role in emission issues.

The original report is at Capitol Confidential.

398 Youth Arrested at White House Protesting Keystone XL Pipeline

Hundreds of Youth Activists Arrested at White House for Keystone XL Protest

Posted by Brad Johnson 

398 youth activists were arrested Sunday in front of the White House, after staging a “die-in” protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The protesters marched from the Georgetown University site of President Barack Obama’s 2013 climate speech to the street in front of Secretary of State John Kerry’s house before arriving at the White House.
Kerry is slated to make a decision on on whether the pipeline — which will unlock access to Canadian tar sands and have a carbon footprint equivalent to fifty new coal-fired power plants — is in the national interest. President Obama is responsible for the final determination.

“We are trying to escalate as much as we can,” Michael Greenberg, a Columbia University sophomore who helped organize Sunday’s protest, told the National Journal’s Ben Geman. “We are not playing softball with the president any more.”

“Young people are tired of watching a president who ran on the promise of ‘ending the tyranny of oil’ keep caving to the fossil fuel industry,” wrote Jamie Henn, Communications Director for 350 Action, at MSNBC.com

There is a Flickr set of XLDissent photographs, and Annie-Rose Strasser at Climate Progress has compiled photos from Twitter of the march and protest.

“An entire movement has thrown itself into in this Keystone fight, from local frontline groups to big national green organizations,” said 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. “But this weekend shows the power and bravery of some of the most crucial elements: young people, and activists who understand the centrality of environmental justice.”

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 What You Need to Know About the Keystone XL Pipeline
The project has become politically charged. You’ve no doubt heard the talking points on both sides of the issue. But digging past the politics, what’s really at stake? Who stands to win and who stands to lose if the pipeline is approved? 

To answer those questions, and others, Bill Moyers & Company put together an essential KXL reader. To read it, Click Here.


Comment on the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Department of State:

 

The comment period is open until Friday, March 7, 2014.  To submit your comment, Click Here. 

 

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XL Dissent: 398 Youth Arrested at Anti-Keystone XL Pipeline Protest at White House

On Sunday, 398 opponents of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline were arrested in front of the White House in what could be the largest youth sit-in on the environment in a generation.

Students from more than 80 colleges rallied at Georgetown University and then marched to the White House, wearing mock "hazmat suits" and holding banners with slogans like "Keep your oil out of my soil" and "Even Voldemort Hates Tar Sands."

President Obama is expected to issue a decision in the next few months on the pipeline, which would transport 830,000 barrels of crude every day from Alberta's oil sands to the U.S. gulf coast.

To hear Democracy Now's Amy Goodman speak to American University student Deirdre Shelly about why she was arrested on Sunday and the growing student-led movement to convince universities, colleges and cities to divest from fossil fuel companies, click here.

 

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Hundreds of Keystone protesters arrested at White House

By Emily Stephenson 
Sun Mar 2, 2014 7:57pm EST

(Reuters) - Police arrested hundreds of young people protesting the Keystone XL project on Sunday, as demonstrators fastened themselves with plastic ties to the White House fences and called for U.S. President Barack Obama to reject the controversial oil pipeline.

Participants, who mostly appeared to be college-aged, held signs reading: "There is no planet B" and "Columbia says no to fossil fuels," referring to the university in New York City.

Another group, several of whom were clad in white jumpsuits splattered with black ink that was meant to represent oil, lay down on a black tarp spread out on Pennsylvania Avenue to stage a mock spill.

Organizers estimated 1,000 people protested and said several hundred agreed to risk arrest by refusing to leave the sidewalk in front of the White House. Citing U.S. Park Police figures, the organizers said later that almost 400 people were arrested.

Bill McKibben to President Obama: Say No to Big Oil

After the State Department issued a long-awaited environmental impact statement on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline last week, environmentalists and those opposed to the 1,179-mile pipeline have intensified their push for the Obama administration to reject the project.

In the Moyers & Company video below, Bill Moyers talks with Bill McKibben, an activist who has dedicated his life to saving the planet from environmental collapse, about his hopes that Americans will collectively pressure Obama to stand up to big oil.

“Most people understand that we’re in a serious fix,” McKibben tells Moyers, “There’s nothing you can do as individuals that will really slow down this juggernaut … You can say the same thing about the challenges faced by people in the civil rights or the abolition movement, or the gay rights movement or the women’s movement. In each case, a movement arose; if we can build a movement, then we have a chance.”

Bill McKibben on Caring for Creation - February 5, 2014

Bill Moyers asks author and environmental activist Bill McKibben about the premise of an article McKibben wrote for OnEarth Magazine in 2006, subtitled “Will Evangelicals Help Save The Earth?” McKibben tells Moyers that faith and environmentalism aren’t necessarily at odds; in fact, they should go together. 

“More and more and more, people of faith are understanding that the very first thing we were asked to do in the good book is steward creation, safeguard it. And it’s probably the command we’ve done the worst job living up to,” McKibben tells Moyers.
 
Hear more of the conversation with McKibben on this weekend’s Moyers & Company. 

Click Here to view McKibben's OnEarth Magazine article entitled, “The Gospel of Green -- Will Evangelicals Help Save The Earth?”

Click Here to read the transcript of the video entitled "Bill McKibben to Obama: Say No to Big Oil."

Monday: Nationwide Vigils to Protest Keystone XL

 

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment in the fight to get President Obama to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. Now that the U.S. State Department has released its final environmental analysis, the decision will soon be in the president's hands.

We know that the pipeline fails the climate test he set. Renowned climate scientist James Hansen said that if we burn all the carbon in the tar sands, it's "game over" for avoiding catastrophic climate change.

But whether or not the president stands up to the oil industry and rejects the pipeline will depend on what we do in the next few months.

That's why on Monday, February 3rd, we are joining with the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, 350.org and other groups to organize nationwide protest vigils to send a clear and urgent message: Keystone XL is a climate disaster, and President Obama must reject it.

• Where:  Front Park – Busti at Porter in Buffalo

• When:  Monday, February 3, at 6 pm.

• What:  Tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL

In this moment, it's especially important that we come out of the gate with a strong message to the president.  We need to show that we are prepared to hold the president to his commitment to take action on climate change, and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

Local Vigil to Include Additional Justice Issues

With the release of the State Department’s final environmental impact statement, the revelation of the cover-up of a true "win-win" solution to diesel traffic on the Peace Bridge, and the attempt to fast track the TPP,  this is a crucial moment to call for "Environmental Justice for All!"   

Join us Monday evening to send the message to President Obama that Keystone XL fails his climate test and he must reject it, to Gov. Cuomo that his current Peace Bridge expansion plans fail to protect the health of residents, and to Congress that fast tracking the TPP will harm the environment!  

For a map and additional information, click here.  

Keystone XL Pipeline: Time to End the Fossil Fuel Addiction

President Obama needs to turn down the Keystone XL pipeline if America is ever going to break its dependency on fossil fuels. Here is Chris Hayes' view:

 

Canadian Oil Sands: Keystone Pipeline - Buffalo Event - Environmental Fight - Trains?

Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Expected By June: WSJ .

The Obama administration will make its final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline by early summer, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The proposed pipeline, which would run from the Canadian oil sands to refineries in Texas, has been under consideration for years, but a final decision on it has been delayed several times due to requests for additional evaluations of the project's environmental impact.

The State Department's inspector general is looking into allegations that there was a conflict of interest with the company that prepared the project's latest draft environmental analysis. That report is expected to be released by the end of January. The State Department has the authority to approve the project because it crosses an international border.
The Journal reports that sources familiar with the decision said that the final environmental impact analysis is expected to be released next month. After that, the State Department will make a decision about whether the pipeline is in the national interest, and other agencies will have 90 days to comment on the verdict. That would put President Barack Obama in a position to make a final decision by May or June.

President Obama has said that the pipeline should be approved only if it is determined that it does not have a major impact on total carbon emissions. "Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation's interest," the president said in his big climate speech last June. "And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

Read the full article at the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal

Buffalo host site for Alberta Oil Sands info

The Consulate General of Canada in New York and the U.S. Commercial Service will co-host its fifth Canada Oil Sands Matchmaking Event in Buffalo on Feb. 3.

At the event, representatives from Alberta’s largest energy companies will host 15-minute meetings with area companies that want to be part of the oil sands supply chain. The rapid growth of the region, which hosts the third-largest proven oil reserve, has created demand for infrastructure, equipment and engineering services.

Read more at Buffalo Business First

Pipeline Fight Lifts Environmental Movement

WASHINGTON — Environmentalists have spent the past two years fighting the Keystone XL pipeline: They have built a human chain around the White House, clogged the State Department’s public comment system with more than a million emails and letters, and gotten themselves arrested at protests across the country. 

But as bad as they argue the 1,700-mile pipeline would be for the planet, Keystone XL has been a boon to the environmental movement. While it remains unclear whether Obama will approve the project, both sides agree that the fight has changed American environmental politics.

“I think it would be naïve for any energy infrastructure company to think that this would be a flash in the pan,” said Alexander J. Pourbaix, president of energy and oil pipelines at TransCanada, the company that has been trying to get a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline since 2008.

Environmentalists want to stop the transport of 800,000 barrels a day of heavy crude from oil sands formations in Canada to Texas refineries, and an oil extraction process that emits more greenhouse gases than other forms of production. Proponents of the Keystone XL project say that the oil will come out of the ground with or without a new pipeline and that other methods of transport, like rail, cause more pollution.

They point out that TransCanada began operations on Wednesday on a southern pipeline segment that connects to existing pipelines to provide a route from Alberta to the Gulf Coast.

Read more at the New York Times 

Transporting Fossil Fuels: Rail vs. Pipeline is the Wrong Question

Debating the best way to do something we shouldn’t be doing in the first place is a sure way to end up in the wrong place. That’s what’s happening with the “rail versus pipeline” discussion. Some say recent rail accidents mean we should build more pipelines to transport fossil fuels. Others argue that leaks, high construction costs, opposition and red tape surrounding pipelines are arguments in favor of using trains.

But the recent spate of rail accidents and pipeline leaks and spills doesn’t provide arguments for one or the other; instead, it indicates that rapidly increasing oil and gas development and shipping ever greater amounts, by any method, will mean more accidents, spills, environmental damage—even death. The answer is to step back from this reckless plunder and consider ways to reduce our fossil fuel use.

If we were to slow down oil sands development, encourage conservation and invest in clean energy technology, we could save money, ecosystems and lives—and we’d still have valuable fossil fuel resources long into the future, perhaps until we’ve figured out ways to use them that aren’t so wasteful. We wouldn’t need to build more pipelines just to sell oil and gas as quickly as possible, mostly to foreign markets. We wouldn’t have to send so many unsafe rail tankers through wilderness areas and places people live.

Read more at EcoWatch