State Dept. Admits Keystone XL Pipeline Climate Impact

TransCanada crew lays a pipeline

In its final environmental review of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the U.S. State Department today acknowledges for the first time that the pipeline could “significantly impact” climate change.

Unlike its previous reviews of the pipeline, the State Department’s new Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement does not claim that the environmental impacts of the pipeline would be minimal.

Instead, the State Department FEIS says, “The total direct and indirect emissions associated with the proposed Project would contribute to cumulative global GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.”

The Final Supplemental EIS is not a decision document on whether to approve or deny the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Instead it is a technical assessment of the potential environmental impacts related to the proposed project. It responds to over 1.9 million public comments received since June 2012.

The proposed Keystone XL project consists of a 1,639 mile (2,639 km) long pipeline to transport up to 830,000 barrels per day of heavy, tarry crude oil called bitumen, diluted with chemicals to make it flow, from the Canadian oil sands at Hardisty, Alberta. The pipeline would also carry crude oil from the Bakken Shale Formation in Montana.

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