Attached to the payroll tax deal was a provision forcing President Obama to decide within 60 days whether or not to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, before its route is even finalized. The deadline runs out on February 21, 2012. The State Department has made it clear it can't do a proper review of the pipeline, especially considering that TransCanada has agreed to change the pipeline's pathway in Nebraska but hasn't even finalized the new route.
With this new and arbitrary deadline, the punditocracy is relitigating the question of whether it should be built. The DC political elite assumed that the pipeline was an inevitability, dismissive or ignorant of the popular opposition to a risky, foreign tar sands pipeline cutting across the center of the nation. Most were blindsided when the State Department announced it needed to review its obviously flawed assessment of the project, and when the state of Nebraska held an emergency legislative session against the pipeline.
With the new rush to approve TransCanada's tar sands pipeline, let's review some key facts that should underlie any analysis of the proposed 1700-mile project from Alberta to Texas:
The approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline was tainted by corruption. The federal approval process was run by a contractor for the pipeline company itself. Cardno Entrix was chosen and paid by TransCanada to draft the State Department's environmental and historical impact statement, manage public hearings, and receive public comment. Big oil's lobbying group American Petroleum Institute was also involved in drafting the environmental impact statement while running ads in favor of tar sands development. TransCanada, who employed former Hillary Clinton aides as lobbyists, has bullied landowners and moved towards construction without needed approval. In response to a congressional request, the State Department's Office of the Inspector General has launched an investigation.
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Keystone XL was not an American jobs bonanza. In 2008, TransCanada's Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL to the State Department indicated “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnelâ€