34 Members of Congress ask for more time for public review of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline environmental assessment

Yesterday, 34 Members of Congress led by Representatives Cohen, Inslee, Welch and Blumenauer, wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson expressing concern about TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and requesting a 120 day public comment period and field hearings for its Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS). The signers included 7 members of the House Appropriations Committee, both co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus as well as its founder Representative Rosa DeLauro, environmental justice champion Representative John Lewis, and long-time environmental leader Representative George Miller.

They write: “While we appreciate the Department of State’s decision to issue a supplemental review, we are concerned that once again the Department of State has failed to appropriately address issues that were ignored or inadequately analyzed in the first environmental review.” In their letter, they also requested a meeting with the State Department to discuss the contents of the SDEIS.

The Keystone XL pipeline would bring up to 900,000 barrels per day of tar sands from Alberta, Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. As NRDC and over 30 other local and national groups wrote earlier this week to the EPA:

[T]he SDEIS dismisses the integral link between the pipeline and the upstream production emissions and other environmental impacts. In spite of the many pipeline ruptures and spills in the last year, the SDEIS fails to look at pipeline safety issues related specifically to diluted bitumen pipelines. It dismisses alternative routes without looking at the shortest routes in the U.S. and it includes only minimal analysis of wetland and migratory bird impacts.  Finally, it fails to consider environmental justice concerns based on the false premise the project will have no additional air quality or community impacts in the areas surrounding the refineries accepting the pipeline’s oil.

The State Department published the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Keystone XL in April 2010, but only announced in March 2011 – after requests from Members of Congress, Mayors, landowners, farmers, environmental groups and others – that they would publish a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement. A month later, they published this supplemental review, but unfortunately, it seems to have been rushed and is just as deficient as the first draft.

Representatives and Senators have been asking the State Department critical questions over the past year about Keystone XL; almost none of their questions have been answered by the SDEIS or otherwise.

US Senators and State Senators in Nebraska have already expressed concern about the lack of proper treatment of the Ogallala Aquifer in the SDEIS, and dozens of local and national group have written to the Environmental Protection Agency, asking them to request an extension on the public comment period and field hearings on the Keystone XL supplemental review.

• Five Nebraska State Senators wrote to Secretary Clinton last week asking the State Department to “delay its decision regarding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline until after the end of the 2012 Legislative session in May 2012” because the Nebraska Legislature “will be studying and introducing legislation in the 2012 Legislative session to address and protect the interests vital to the State of Nebraska and the United States” – especially pertaining to the Ogallala Aquifer and Nebraska Sandhills.
• Senator Johanns has also requested that the State Department send staff to visit the Sand Hills region in Nebraska, and to hold a field hearing in the area.
• And Senator Nelson said that the State Department should take due time for assessing the pipeline: “I’m in favor of setting deadlines when it appears that an agency is stalling. In this case, I’m not convinced that they’re stalling. I’m convinced that as they have continued to do studies, they have found additional areas that require further study.”

This most recent letter expresses concern about the lack of adequate analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, the need for the pipeline and how it fits in with the President’s goal to reduce our oil imports, alternative routes avoiding Sandhills and Ogallala Aquifer, pipeline safety, and impacts to minority and low income communities. We appreciate their continued efforts to weigh in with the State Department and EPA, and hope that the EPA will also weigh in with the State Department to once again express concern about Keystone XL. EPA rated the Draft EIS “Category 3: Inadequate”; this Supplemental deserves no better.

Tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline are the wrong direction for the United States at a time when we should be embracing energy efficiency and renewable energy, and getting ourselves off oil. Visit www.nrdc.org/noKXL and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.