The Obama administration's denial of a permit for the Keystone tar sands pipeline appears to have removed a high profile pressure point for administration to fully account for greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) -- an issue on which the administration has yet to finalize pending draft guidance.
But environmentalists and others are suggesting that if the project is re-proposed for review in the future, as its backers have indicated they are likely to do, it could be subject to a more rigorous assessment of its GHG impacts. "A decision on the pipeline proposal requires nothing less than a thorough and fair-minded analysis of its full effects on our environment and climate,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) President Frances Beinecke said in a statement.
At the same time, the administration's decision to delay the controversial pipeline is reigniting political debate on the project, which the oil industry and many lawmakers are vowing to keep front and center as an election year issue.
Ending months of speculation, President Obama in a Jan. 18 memo announced his agreement with a State Department recommendation to deny a presidential permit for the project. Obama said that the project, "as presented and analyzed at this time, does not serve the national interest."
Obama cast the decision as an inevitable outcome after the department late last year said a 60-day deadline Congress set for the decision in December payroll tax legislation did not allow enough time to adequately assess the project. Congress approved the language after State said in November that review of the environmental implications of the project, particularly of a possible alternate route through Nebraska, would take until at least early 2013.
The White House stopped just short of an outright rejection of the project, stating that the decision does not preclude subsequent permit applications or applications for similar projects.
However, in a Jan. 18 State Department press briefing on the decision, Assistant Secretary Dr. Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters any subsequent application would "trigger a completely new review process." The statement came in response to a query on plans by TransCanada, the backer of the project, to reapply and seek expedited review.
Jones said, "we cannot state that anything would be expedited at this time.” She acknowledged that current guidelines allow use of existing information as part of that process but "we would have to look at this as a completely new application."
NRDC's Beinecke welcomed the administration's decision but indicated that any new application and review would still face the same opposition as the most recent review. Those objections by NRDC and others have included claims that prior environmental review by State failure to adequately account for the GHG emissions from the project, and the Obama administration has yet to finalize crucial guidance for assessing GHG emissions under NEPA.
More Thorough GHG Review
In mid-2011, when the department still appeared on course to approve the pipeline, EPA and environmentalists raised concerns that a decision to approve the project would ignore a then-pending draft guidance that would require agencies to conduct more thorough GHG reviews and, as required by NEPA, mitigate any environmental harms.
They surmised at the time that the guidance would be shelved at least until after the 2012 campaign season.
Building on that draft guidance, the White House Council on Environmental Quality in mid 2011 also floated a method for agencies to use in assessing the GHG impacts of projects on federal lands, a policy particularly relevant to environmentalists concerns about GHG implications of energy leases or other resource development on federal lands.
Obama administration officials have suggested that they ultimately want to wrap both guidance documents together in one final document. That effort, however, remains pending as of the Obama administration's Keystone announcement, at a time when every GHG related effort from the White House faces white hot election year scrutiny.
Meanwhile, Obama's decision sparked a firestorm of reaction both on and off Capitol Hill, with GOP lawmakers characterizing the decision as a political dodge to please environmentalists while Democrats offered more mixed reactions. Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) called the move by Obama "pure politics aimed at not riling up his base during an election year."
But Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who has been urging the administration to rigorously assess the project's GHG impacts, embraced the decision as rejection of a "lose-lose proposition for energy security, gas prices, a safe climate, and a healthy environment."
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) said the decision given the congressional deadline should have been no surprise, but expressed hope in a statement that the project could be revived and considered on the merits.
Oil industry reaction was harsh, with American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard in a Jan.18 teleconference describing the decision as "genuflection to a handful of extreme elements" who opposed the project. Gerard said the industry would pursue both legislative and legal avenues to counter the move and predicted political consequences not just for Obama but for House and Senate races in the 2012 elections. --Doug Obey (dobey@iwpnews.com)