Keystone XL Pipeline Defeated By One Vote-- For Now

Chris Mooney has been doing some terrific reporting for the Washington Post, primarily on Science. Last week's look at the correlateions between a primitive or fundamental interpretation of Bronze Age religious traditions and a fear or misunderstanding of science is enlightening. He wanted to examine whether religious belief rather than political ideology, better explains why some people resist the science on issues like climate change, evolution, and stem cell research. The results varied but he concludes that "when people deny science, they do it because they think it conflicts with their personal identity. But many elements go into each of our identities, with both politics and religion constituting vital components for many people."

Predictably, Mooney wrote about the Keystone Pipeline fight just as the Senate began their debate yesterday. A party of ideological science deniers, House Republicans (with 31 Democrats from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party) passed the bill November 14. In an ill-conceived fool's errand to try to save Mary Landrieu's doomed political career (or ease her way into a cush job on K Street), Harry Reid allowed a vote in the Senate yesterday. Although there was a last minute rumor that Dick Durbin would be the 60th vote, McConnell and Landrieu only managed to come up with 59-- one short. The bill is dead... until the Republicans take over in January. Then it will pass an the Republicans and their Big Oil allies won't have the votes to overturn a presidential veto. 14 conservative Democrats crossed the aisle to help the Republicans destroy the planet. No profiles in courage in this lot:

• Michael Bennet (D-CO)

• Tom Carper (D-DE)
• Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
• Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
• Joe Manchin (D-WV)
• Mark Warner (D-VA)
• John Walsh (D-MT)
• Jon Tester (D-MT)
• Bob Casey (D-PA)
• Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
• Kay Hagan (D-NC)
• Joe Donnelly (D-IN)
• Mark Pryor (D-AR)
• Mark Begich (D-AK)

Filled with misinformation from from corporate media and the lack of any effective pushback from the Democrats, most Americans (65%)-- including even most Democrats-- support the Keystone XL Pipeline. Incongruously, the same survey finds that "when it comes to another issue making headlines-- a proposal to tighten greenhouse gas emissions from power plants-- the public favors stricter limits, by exactly the same margin as the Keystone pipeline (65% to 30%).

The bill, Mooney explains, "goes around a process typically handled by the executive branch. Indeed, the bill passed by the House does not merely take the process of deciding on the pipeline's approval out of the hands of the State Department. It also states that the State Department’s final supplemental environmental impact statement on Keystone “shall be considered to fully satisfy” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and “any other provision of law that requires Federal agency consultation or review.”

"What this bill will do, if it ends up being enacted," says Zoldan, "is take the fact-finding process…away from an executive agency, and say that it’s automatically deemed to be in compliance with the law." This may be one reason why a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware recently said the senator would opposes the bill because "it’s not Congress’s job to issue construction permits."

Zoldan thinks that if the bill were indeed to become law (somehow surviving President Obama's presumed veto), environmentalists might have a good case for a lawsuit over it. More generally, he explains, Congress ought to pass laws that have a general nature, and then let the executive and the judiciary apply those laws to specific situations, individuals, or companies.

Another way of putting it? Congress really ought to have more respect for the categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Or, when making laws, make sure they apply to everyone-- or every company.

Vermont's two senators, Patrick Leahy (D) and Bernie Sanders, opposed the bill for more fundamental reasons. Leahy:

This pipeline is one of the most striking examples of how our unquenchable thirst for oil is destroying our environment. This destruction will continue until we move forward with the implementation of a comprehensive, national energy plan. The debate over the Keystone pipeline will not move us toward a sustainable energy future. Instead this pipeline ties us to an energy policy of the past, while simultaneously accelerating our impact on the climate. These tar sands require an energy-intensive process, rife with pollutions and harmful emissions, to get them out of the ground, extract them, and refine them.

We should not rubberstamp a project like this that poses such serious risks to the Nation’s and the world’s environment, and to our communities’ safety. I am astounded by the fact that in its first year of operation, the existing Keystone Pipeline-- which was billed as the safest pipeline in history when it was built in 2010-- has spilled 12 times in its first year of operation. That is more than any other pipeline in U.S. history.

These spills are even more worrisome because the tar sands oil is so hard to clean up after a spill. Just ask the communities along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, where it has cost more than $1 billion-- so far-- to clean up a tar sands spill in 2010. Now, more than four years later, it is still a mess, and landowners continue to wait for help to restore property damaged by the spill and to rebuild the ravaged pipeline.

We do not need more empty assurances from the oil industry. Before the Valdez spill in Alaska, Exxon executives told us their oil tankers were safe.  We heard similar promises from BP, which insisted that it could handle an oil spill in a deep-water drilling operation. The images from both of those spills are still fresh in our memories.

Proponents argue that this pipeline will help our energy security here in the United States. But this tar sands oil is not headed to Americans’ gas stations to help lower the price of gas here at home. No, TransCanada is bypassing the refineries in the Midwest and heading straight for the coast so this oil can be used in export markets, pumped on ships headed for China. That may be good news for the Chinese, but it is the American people who are stuck with the safety risks, health challenges, future environmental disasters and the rapid acceleration of our contribution to climate change.

These facts are clear: The Keystone pipeline significantly worsens the problem of carbon pollution, and it is not in our national interest.