Last week the Obama administration announced it was going to delay making a decision regarding the Keystone XL pipeline for “about 12 to 18 months,” according to the New York Times.
This is a conscious decision to deflect one of the biggest issues coming from the progressive caucus—a group Obama needs desperately if he has any hope for a second term—until after the election season has passed.
This issue—this pipeline—must not be allowed to disappear from the public consciousness.
The proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline would run 1,700 miles from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada, to Houston, Texas. The route would cross over 2,000 rivers and streams, including the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world.
The Keystone pipeline system is owned and operated by TransCanada, a major energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. The original Keystone pipeline runs from Athabasca to Patoka, Ill. and Cushing, Okla.
Environmental activists, including journalist Bill McKibben and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as 10,000 protesters who surrounded the White House last week, have denounced the planned pipeline, citing the highly dirty nature of oil sands relative to lighter forms of crude oil.
Speaking to Democracy Now! hosts Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez in July, NRDC policy analyst Anthony Swift said, “The pipeline you just mentioned, Keystone XL, would carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day, a type of oil that’s very corrosive and has some new risks that conventional oil does not.”
The Keystone pipelines also threaten labor forces in both Canada and the United States.
In 2007, when the original Keystone pipeline was being discussed, Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada president Dave Cole said, “The Keystone pipeline will exclusively serve US markets, create permanent employment for very few Canadians, reduce our energy security, and hinder investment and job creation in the Canadian energy sector.”
Groups like the Labor Network for Sustainability are making similar statements in the US.
For an administration that apparently is committed to “(ending) the tyranny of oil,” the Keystone XL pipeline would be nothing but a black stain on its already war-torn, impoverished image—regardless of which side of the 2012 election cycle it lands on.
While the planned pipeline has been pushed further down the pipeline, progressives and environmentalists must not let Keystone XL out of their sight.