The National Resource Defense Council Switchboard blog has
two key updates on the Keystone Pipeline project, signalling potential second thoughts on the project in the administration and more leverage for pipeline opponents.
A Reuters story just hit their wires quoting unnamed State Department officials saying that they are considering an analysis of alternative pipeline routes for the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Consideration of alternative routes has always been one of the key issues that the State Department needed to consider. We must protect water and croplands in Nebraska, and everywhere else across the Great Plains. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would put those resources at needless risk. However, any further environmental review must also include an on-the-ground, fresh look at pipeline safety, climate change, and environmental justice. With this information in hand, there will be only one right decision on the pipeline: rejection. [...]
Perhaps the administration has realized it has dropped the ball on this decision and wants to hit the reset button. The President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are obligated to get this process right. They must start over with an open and scientific process, free of the conflicts of interest that have plagued their analysis from the start. If they do a thorough and genuine analysis, we remain confident that Keystone XL will never be built. It is simply not in our nation’s best interest to trade our climate, land and water for the needs of Big Oil and a few of their cronies.
The other bit of news they note is the shutdown of an existing TransCanada Keystone pipeline due to "mechanical issues." NRDC note that this is underscores TransCanada's "spotty record with its first oil pipeline which has leaked 14 times in the United States in less than two years and making crystal clear how dangerous the Keystone XL pipeline could be." The time of this latest pipeline malfunction could give the already huge opposition to the project more impetus, and more weight.
Leaks happen, pretty frequently with Keystone if the existing pipeline is any indication, and that has to be taken into consideration by President Obama, who has said he is going to make the final decision on approval, and that a priority is "making sure that the health and safety of the American people and folks in Nebraska are protected."