http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gateway-pipeline-poses-unknown-environmental-threat

Large cracks remain in the science assessing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline Project
By Anne Casselman

WATER WAY: The Northern Gateway pipeline would traverse north-central Albert and British Columbia and cross 996 watercourses, of which 669 are fish-bearing, including the Nechako River pictured here.
Image: Andrew S. Wright/WWF-Canada

As controversy continues around the Keystone XL Pipeline that would snake through the U.S., a similar drama plays out north of the border. Canadian officials are deciding whether to green-light a pipeline that would carry a semiliquid hydrocarbon mix for 1,172 kilometers from Alberta’s tar sands over the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific coast of British Columbia. Near its proposed terminus, the proposal has met with public outcry and fierce opposition from the Coastal First Nations, a coalition of indigenous tribes.

Calgary, Alberta-based energy company Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline would cross over 1,000 fish-bearing streams and bring 255 oil supertankers each year to the coastline, making the issue highly contentious in Canada’s famously outdoor-loving province. Of 1,161 British Columbians to give oral statements as part of the pipeline’s federal review process, only two were in favor of the project.

What’s more, the pipeline would be carrying an oil product that no one knows much about: diluted bitumen, or dilbit. University and government scientists emphasize an urgent need to fill the knowledge gaps surrounding what diluted bitumen is made of, how it reacts in the environment when spilled, and what its long-term biological effects are.

Answers to those questions are prerequisites to assessing the ecological risks posed by the eight such pipeline projects in Canada alone and to planning for an effective spill-response when things go wrong. “I think it’s fair to say, there’s been some purposeful denial that the bitumen is really something different,” says Steve Hamilton, an aquatic ecologist at Michigan State University who worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Enbridge in 2010 to remediate a diluted bitumen spill in Michigan-work that is still ongoing. “The science has not informed this cleanup very well. There’s a pressing need for research.”

Bitumen is a thick hydrocarbon, the “tar” in Alberta’s tar sands, the third largest deposit of hydrocarbons in the world. To flow through a pipeline, the tarlike bitumen is diluted with gas condensates or synthetic oils known as diluents. This mixture of bitumen and diluent is called diluted bitumen, or dilbit for short, but its precise formulation varies widely and is not publicly released.

Finding out what exactly is included under the umbrella term dilbit is an important first step in understanding this unconventional form of oil. “It’s not cast in stone exactly what dilbit is,” says Kenneth Lee, head of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO) Center for Offshore Oil and Gas Energy Research in Nova Scotia. “The fate and behavior of the product-the character of the product when it’s spilled in the water-will depend on what the final formulation is,” Lee says. Next comes figuring out how dilbit behaves when it is spilled. “We have to understand the physical behavior of the oil before we can design the optimal cleanup technologies,” he adds.

The chronic, long-term effects of bitumen on an ecosystem present a similar blank, although the Michigan spill will provide some information. “In trying to identify research needs, one of the things that’s obvious is the lack of toxicity data,” says Peter Hodson, a fish toxicologist at Queens University in Ontario. “Neither dilbit nor gas condensates have been tested, and so far I’ve not been able to find any literature on the environmental impacts of those two products.”

Spilled dilbit
The past mishap provides some clues about what might happen. On Sunday, July 25, 2010, one of Enbridge’s pipelines in the U.S. sprung a leak near Marshall, Mich. By the time the spill was contained some three days later, some 20,000 barrels of diluted bitumen had leaked from the pipe and entered a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. At the time the river was in a flood stage, which slowed the oil’s transport downstream. Even then the oil contaminated a 65-kilometer-long stretch of river, overtopped several dams and deposited itself onto the vegetation in the flood plain. The contaminated flora had to be stripped away and taken to landfills, after detergents and water sprays wouldn’t budge the stuff. Ditto with surface soils; once spilled, the dilbit became heavier and thicker as the diluting component of the mix evaporated into the air. “When it loses the diluent it turns back to its original tarry nature and it sticks to things. It’s next to impossible to get off,” Michigan State’s Hamilton says.

Then there was the oil that became submerged in river sediments. “One of the big questions when we’re talking about dilbit is, does it float or does it sink?” DFO’s Lee says. “If you talk to Enbridge or some of the people in industry, they say, ‘well, it floats.’ You look at what happened in the Kalamazoo river, and it sank.”

The physical and chemical properties of oil products change as they are exposed to the open environment in a process known as weathering. Typically oils float, Lee says, but evidence from the Kalamazoo spill, and results of early lab tests, suggest that as dilbit interacts with fine particles suspended in the water column, like the sediments found in river water, it sinks. “Dilbit in its initial form for a period of days to weeks is not an unusual product,” says Jeff Green, a consultant to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway and technical coordinator for its environmental assessment. “If it does take on heavy sediment loads and weathers, it can sink, and so it can become a nonfloating hydrocarbon.”

Knowing whether dilbit sinks or floats and under what environmental conditions remains a key step to planning an effective spill response. If dilbit sinks, what clean up strategies and technologies exist to recover it from the river bottom or ocean floor? In the Kalamazoo dilbit spill, Enbridge stirred up the river bottom to loosen and recover the oil.

Lee points out that this approach was not effective in conditions colder than 4.4 degrees Celsius, which could pose a problem in colder northern river systems. “In my mind, this is an unproven technique,” Hamilton says. The results of EPA-commissioned experiments testing its effectiveness last summer have yet to come in.

No one knows what fraction of the 3.1 million liters of spilled dilbit in Michigan became what has since been termed “submerged oil,” but it was enough to contaminate hundreds of acres of river sediment. Three years and nearly $800 million dollars of cleanup efforts later, Enbridge and the EPA still have more work to do. As a last resort, they will likely dredge the river bottom and dispose of the contaminated sediment in landfills this summer. “We’ve basically had to destroy the environment to recover the submerged oil,” Hamilton says.

The ecosystem has bounced back quite well, however. Along the river, fish, aquatic insects, birds or mammals appear healthy, Hamilton reports. “You have to remember that $800,000 and thousands of workers stripped every visible patch of oil off the landscape. So if it were in an environment where you couldn’t do that, then it wouldn’t be bouncing back like it is now,” he notes. “I can’t imagine what sort of environment that might be but it could be anywhere along the proposed route of the [Northern Gateway] Pipeline where you’ve got rugged terrain or rivers or steep gradients, or it could be in the port where it goes into deep bays. It would be next to impossible to clean up.”

And, even after this costly lesson, he points out that no one knows what causes the oil to sink, nor does anyone know its ecological cost, toxicity, environmental persistence or whether there are things that can be done to accelerate its biodegradation. “I believe that the world would have been better off if we had done some more focused directed research during the last couple years to ask these questions and get some answers,” Hamilton says.

Gateway to disaster?
In 2011 Canadian oil production reached 2.9 million barrels a day and by 2020 that number is expected to reach 4.2 million. Enbridge’s Northern Gateway alone would transport 525,000 barrels of dilbit daily, in addition to 193,000 barrels of imported condensate that would flow through a second pipe alongside leading back to the tar sands in Alberta.

“If we look at the historical record, it’s clear that Canada has never had a system of pipelines that are leakproof or spill-proof,” says Sean Kheraj, a historian at York University in Toronto. Kheraj points to the telling statistic that in 2010 Alberta’s pipeline network alone spilled 3.4 million liters of liquid hydrocarbon product (which is the fancy name for oil and gas products). “We can anticipate historically that there will likely be spills along any new pipeline network, whether it’s Keystone XL or Northern Gateway.”

In testimony to the Joint Review Panel assessing Northern Gateway back in September 2012 in Edmonton, Enbridge spill expert and economist Jack Ruitenbeek reported that the probability of a tanker, pipeline rupture or terminal spill-of any size, large or small-across the pipeline’s 50-year lifetime was 93 percent. The National Energy Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency’s Joint Review Panel that is currently assessing the environmental effects of Northern Gateway will reach their decision on the pipeline by the end of 2013.

But if the proposed pipeline spills in British Columbia, aquatic ecosystems along its path will be most at risk. “Once you get over the [Continental] Divide virtually every stream that would be crossed turns into a salmon-bearing stream. There are no streams that are of trivial significance from an ecosystem context,” says Mark Boyce, a fisheries and wildlife biologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “At the end, at the far reaches of these pipelines are the most pristine marine environments on the planet, and to go mucking that up is just outrageous.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.eenews.net/gw/2013/03/04
Jason Plautz and Nick Juliano, E&E reporters
Published: Monday, March 4, 2013

Saying that fighting climate change and promoting clean energy will be second-term priorities, President Obama today officially nominated U.S. EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy to lead the agency and MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to head the Department of Energy.

“They’re going to be making sure that we’re investing in American energy, that we’re doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we’re going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity in the first place,” Obama said at the White House this morning.

McCarthy currently heads EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, where she oversaw some of the agency’s most high-profile regulations during Obama’s first term. McCarthy steps in for Lisa Jackson, who departed the agency last month.

Moniz, who previously served as DOE undersecretary in the Clinton administration, replaces outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu. He has drawn some criticism from green groups for his views on hydraulic fracturing and nuclear power.

Obama also tapped Wal-Mart Foundation President and former OMB Deputy Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell to lead the Office of Management and Budget (see related story).
Environmentalists welcomed the long-expected Energy and EPA picks and Obama’s promise to have them fight the threat of climate change through clean air regulations and clean energy. Announcing the picks today, Obama said the two would build on “the work that we’ve done to control our own energy future, while reducing pollution that contributes to climate change.”

But some Republican senators have expressed concerns over EPA operations and said they will be scrutinizing McCarthy’s record at the agency and her vision for its future. GOP senators also are taking a wait-and-see approach to Moniz as they probe his experience.

Both picks must be confirmed by the Senate, but no hearings have been scheduled.
EPA
Green groups said McCarthy’s nomination signals that the White House will not let up on its regulatory push. In the air office, McCarthy oversaw first-of-their-kind greenhouse gas and toxics rules for power plants, new restrictions on sulfur in gasoline, and tougher fuel economy standards for cars and trucks.

McCarthy also has a reputation for working well with the industries she is regulating and for doing the heavy lifting on complicated rules.

She previously served as commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, helping lay the groundwork for the multistate Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and held several positions as a Massachusetts regulator under then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R).

Natural Resources Defense Council President Frances Beinecke praised McCarthy as a “good listener, a straight shooter and someone who has what it takes to build consensus and find solutions.”

“We can count on her to protect our environment and our health,” Beinecke said in a statement. “And she can count on our support as she works to get the job done on behalf of Americans everywhere.”
EPA has a lengthy list of regulations on deck, including finalizing rules on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants and Tier 3 rules limiting sulfur in gasoline. The agency is also expected to craft new greenhouse gas regulations for existing power plants, following through on a long-delayed promise.

“Every American is — or will soon be — breathing cleaner air because of McCarthy,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.

“Breathers need McCarthy now more than ever as EPA prepares to tackle critical air quality challenges, including the need for smog-fighting lower-sulfur gasoline, updated national ozone air standards, and greenhouse gas standards for both new and existing power plants,” he added. “Dealing effectively with climate change is the challenge of a lifetime.”

Although there are sure to be questions about her role in overseeing new regulations, McCarthy has won praise from industry and utility officials for her willingness to listen to their concerns and work with them while crafting the rules (Greenwire, Feb. 12).
“Given that the recent rules arising under the Clean Air Act are some of the most expensive in EPA history, McCarthy has significant experience with wide-sweeping stakeholder contact,” said Scott Segal of Bracewell & Giuliani’s Policy Resolution Group.

“What many in industry appreciate about her style is her directness and openness to engagement with the regulated community,” he added. “Almost every large EPA rule has errors — both in policy and methodology. McCarthy listens and allows for the possibility of midcourse corrections.”

But in a statement, Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson called for the Senate to reject McCarthy because of her involvement in regulatory work and several agency “scandals.” Wilson said McCarthy was “unfit to run a Burger King, let alone a Cabinet-level agency that threatens our nation’s economy through its series of strange and bizarre regulatory rulings.”

McCarthy will likely face some uphill battles in being confirmed by the Senate. Environment and Public Works ranking member David Vitter (R-La.) has signaled that he is concerned about EPA’s transparency, citing several recent requests for more information on everything from ozone regulations to agenda publishing that have gone unanswered.

“The EPA is in desperate need of a leader who will stop ignoring congressional information requests, hiding emails and more from the public, and relying on flawed science,” Vitter said in a statement. “McCarthy has been directly involved in much of that, but I hope she can reverse those practices with Lisa Jackson’s departure. I look forward to hearing answers from her on a number of key issues.”

McCarthy’s nomination to the air post in 2009 was held up by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) over broader concerns about the administration’s climate policy. She was confirmed by voice vote after Barrasso lifted his hold.

Sources off the Hill said they would not be surprised to see Vitter or other Republicans on the EPW committee use McCarthy’s hearing to weigh in on upcoming regulations or the administration’s commitment to fight climate change.

Barrasso said in a statement this morning that he had “serious concerns about how the current EPA operates” and that he would “take a very close look at Ms. McCarthy’s experience at the EPA and her vision for the agency.”

Still, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a staunch EPA opponent, had praise for McCarthy, saying in 2009 that she “possesses the knowledge, experience and temperament to oversee a very important office at EPA” (Greenwire, June 2, 2009).
In a statement today, Inhofe said he is looking forward to “sitting down and talking with her to find common ground as I did with Lisa Jackson.”

EPW Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had nothing but praise for McCarthy, saying that Obama “could not have picked a more qualified person to lead EPA at this critical time.”

Boxer promised to move forward with McCarthy’s nomination as soon as possible, although no plans for a hearing have been set.
DOE
Moniz, 69, shares Chu’s scientific background but will come to the job more familiar with Washington than his predecessor. During the Clinton administration, Moniz served in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and as an undersecretary at DOE. While at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Moniz acted as an adviser on several Obama administration policies on nuclear waste, shale natural gas, and research and development.

“I think the most important thing he brings to the job by far is that he understands the interplay between science and politics,” said Elgie Holstein, who worked with Moniz in the Clinton administration and now is senior director for strategic planning at the Environmental Defense Fund. “He understands that science in Washington is not a given, and you have to make your case through the political process no matter what the issue is.”

Obama praised Moniz’s familiarity with Washington in announcing the nomination this morning.

“The good news is that Ernie already knows his way around the Department of Energy. … Most importantly, Ernie knows that we can produce more energy and grow our economy, while still taking care of our air, our water and our climate,” the president said.
Obama called for the Senate to quickly confirm the nomination. Few red flags were immediately apparent, although Republicans on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee said they were taking a wait-and-see approach to Moniz.

“I’m willing to work with both DOE and the EPA to address the shared challenges we face, but it truly must be done in a way that recognizes the benefits of an energy supply that is not only clean, but also abundant, affordable, diverse and secure,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking member on energy, said in a statement this morning. “My support will depend on both nominees demonstrating that they can lead DOE and the EPA in a way that restores balance to these objectives.”

Republican senators are glad to see Moniz’s support for natural gas and nuclear but will be pressing for more information on his views toward oil and coal, said a GOP aide who requested anonymity. Moniz’s previous statements in favor of a carbon tax also likely will be a topic of discussion in committee hearings.

Aides to other Republicans on the committee, including Sens. Rob Portman (Ohio), James Risch (Idaho) and Barrasso, said they were still reviewing Moniz’s credentials and withholding judgment until after the confirmation hearings but did not indicate any immediate problems.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, welcomed Moniz’s nomination and said he looks forward to discussing several pressing issues.

“That includes: re-engaging Dr. Moniz over the problems with cleaning up nuclear waste at the Hanford Site; finding creative ways to promote new technologies and harness the ingenuity of America’s energy innovators; and examining the diverse opportunities to attack climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy,” Wyden said in a statement.

Moniz’s support for natural gas and nuclear energy has raised concerns among some environmental groups (Greenwire, Feb. 22).

Several green groups welcomed his nomination today but made clear they would be looking for additional emphasis on promoting renewable energy over conventional sources.

Environment America Clean Energy Advocate Courtney Abrams said the group was “concerned” about where Moniz would lead DOE given his previous support for shale gas and nuclear power. She said she wants to hear Moniz commit to endorsing Obama’s calls for doubling renewable energy and boosting energy efficiency in the coming decades rather than tout gas and nuclear as tools to address global warming.

“We would like for the administration to move in the direction of solely focusing on renewable energy,” Abrams said in an interview this morning, pointing to DOE work like its Better Buildings and SunShot initiatives as programs that should be emphasized. “Environment America has made very clear our opposition to fracking and to nuclear power, so we would like to not move in that direction, absolutely.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune made a similar observation.

“In his role as Secretary of Energy, we urge Mr. Moniz to prioritize clean, renewable energy as climate solutions over destructive fossil fuels and boondoggles like liquefied natural gas exports,” Brune said in a statement. “We would stress to Mr. Moniz that an ‘all of the above’ energy policy only means ‘more of the same,’ and we urge him to leave dangerous nuclear energy and toxic fracking behind while focusing on safe, clean energy sources like wind and solar.”

The Environmental Defense Fund, which has been more supportive than other environmental groups of deploying natural gas as a bridge fuel, noted Moniz’s efforts to ensure that gas extraction does not harm the environment.

“Dr. Moniz has repeatedly observed that just because the environmental challenges of shale gas are manageable — that does not mean that they are yet managed,” EDF President Fred Krupp said in a statement. “As there is work that remains to be done to ensure the safety of communities living around oil and gas development, and to address the air pollution issues that go beyond the local neighbors, his perspective will be important in the national conversation.”

The industry-backed think tank Institute for Energy Research greeted Moniz’s nomination with a call for DOE to split from its previous practice of backing clean technologies with loan guarantees and other supports.

“Dr. Moniz will inherit an agency with a tarnished record for picking losers and not winners in the energy market,” IER President Thomas Pyle said in a statement. “It is our hope that Dr. Moniz will avoid opportunities to repeat the well-documented mistakes of his predecessor and refuse the temptation to let political pressure trump sound science and economics at the department.”

The Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners predicted Moniz would tread a middle path on questions related to fossil fuel development and exports.

“We interpret the Moniz nomination as another administration acceptance of domestic natural gas (and oil) development,” ClearView said in a note to clients this morning, “but not a wholesale endorsement of expanded production or exports.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/03/01-7

Published on Friday, March 1, 2013 by Common Dreams

Sierra Club expresses “outrage” over “deeply flawed analysis” that ignores “greatest threat to our children’s future: climate disruption”
– Jon Queally, staff writer

Tens of thousands gathered in Washington, DC on February 17th with one simple call to the Obama Administration: “Move forward on climate, Mr. President, and reject the Keystone XL pipeline.” (Photo: Reuters)

The US State Department on Friday afternoon released a newly updated draft of its Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which, if approved, would dramatically increase the extraction and transfer of Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf coast.

And as Sierra Club’s Michael Brune said in a late afternoon press call, “”You know the news is bad when it comes out at 4pm on Friday.”

The draft itself can be accessed here.

In response to the SEIS’ release, Brune released the following statement:

“The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department’s deeply flawed analysis today and what can only be interpreted as lip service to one of the greatest threats to our children’s future: climate disruption.

“We’re mystified as to how the State Department can acknowledge the negative effects of the Earth’s dirtiest oil on our climate, but at the same time claim that the proposed pipeline will ‘not likely result in significant adverse environmental effects.’ Whether this failure was willful or accidental, this report is nothing short of malpractice.

“President Obama said that he’s committed to fighting the climate crisis. If that is true, he should throw the State Department’s report away and reject the dirty and dangerous Keystone XL pipeline.”

Jane Kleeb of the group Bold Nebraska joined other environmental leaders in rejecting the report’s conclusion that tar sands development would not be impacted by rejection of the pipeline.

“Tarsands does not expand unless Keystone XL is built,” Kleeb said. “The State Department’s assumption that tarsands development does not change with or without this pipeline is wrong and laughable. Why would TransCanada spend billions on building the pipeline and millions on lobbying unless this piece of infrastructure is the–not a–but the lynchpin for the expansion of tarsands. Without this pipeline Canada stays at 2 million barrels a day, with it they get 3 million barrels a day. The President has the ability to keep a million barrels of tarsands in the ground a day. With a stroke of a pen he can protect property rights, water and make a dent in climate change.”

“This report is laughable using the wrong assumption and therefore the wrong science,” she said.

350.org co-founder Bill McKibben agreed, saying that “everyone in Canada knows they cannot expand the Alberta tar sands the way they’d like to without the Keystone XL being built.”

McKibben added: “This is not the State Department’s finest hour.”

Acknowledging worries that the SEIS signals that the State Dept. would recommend and that Obama would ultimately approve the project, environmentalists said they would be ramping up their efforts in the coming days, weeks, and months.

“We’re going to help them [reject the pipeline] by mounting as much public protest as we can in the weeks ahead,” said McKibben.

Some quick key takeaways from the “Cumulative Impact” section include:

THREAT TO WATER SOURCES: GROUNDWATER:
Potential impacts due to releases of crude oil. Releases could potentially impact groundwater where the overlying soils are permeable and the depth to groundwater is shallow. Analyses in Section 4.13 suggest that large crude oil releases that do reach groundwater systems (including the Ogallala Aquifer) could result in oil spreading on the water table as far as 1,214 feet, and dissolved components of the oil, such as benzene, could spread as much as an additional 1,050 feet.

JOBS CREATED:
35 to 50 permanent jobs and negligible earnings and other revenues.

POTENTIAL SPILLS:
Spills associated with the proposed Project that enter the environment are expected to be rare and relatively small. Industry standards and practices (including the 57 Project-specific Special Conditions developed by PHMSA) provide a level of protection above that of other pipeline systems in existence. Modeling shows that, exclusive of topography and groundwater flow, large spills (20,000 barrels) could spread up to 1,214 feet on the ground surface or on the water table, and up to 1,050 feet dissolved in groundwater. Spills reaching surface water could be transported greater distances.

Response was swift on twitter:

According to the introductory letter accompanying the draft (emphasis added):

Once the Draft SEIS is noticed in the Federal Register, a 45-day comment period will begin. As part of the Department’s process, members of the public, public agencies, and other interested parties are encouraged to submit comments, questions, and concerns about the project via e-mail to keystonecomments@state.gov, at http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov, or mailed to:

U.S. Department of State
Attn: Genevieve Walker, NEPA Coordinator
2201 C Street NW, Room 2726
Washington, D.C. 20520

After the end of the public comment period, the Department will prepare a Final SEIS.

Ultimately, a determination will be made on whether this project serves the national interest. The national interest determination will involve consideration of many factors, including: energy security; environmental, cultural, and economic impacts; foreign policy; and compliance with relevant federal regulations. As directed by Executive Order 13337, before making such a decision, the Department will also request the views of several agencies and officials, including: the Departments of Defense, Justice, Interior, Commerce, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Though the EIS does not necessarily dictate whether or not President Obama will approve the project, its content will be a vital piece of information in signaling the direction the administration is heading. If favorable to the pipeline, fossil fuel industry lobbyists will call mark it as a victory.

But, in anticipation of the release, the environmental group 350.org, which just two weeks ago led tens of thousands of people in a march against the pipeline in Washington, tweeted:

As details of the report’s content become clear, the DeSmogBlog will be liveblogging the release here.

The timing of the draft assessment’s release, however, speaks volumes. As DeSmog’s Kevin Grandia notes:

[Releasing the EIS] late on a Friday – very typical when someone wants to put out bad news. This White House has used the tactic a lot. Another thing to note is that this isn’t just any Friday afternoon, it is also the day final day to reach a sequester deal in Congress. All eyes in the media are focused on that!

Ahead of the release, the Canadian Press, citing a source at 350.org, reported that the EIS “acknowledges that Alberta’s oilsands are carbon-intensive” it also “apparently makes clear that all modes of transportation are risky and the pipeline itself isn’t any more of a threat to the environment.”

If true, such an “analysis would mean that Calgary-based TransCanada has cleared a significant hurdle in its marathon bid to win approval for Keystone XL from the Obama administration.”

Earlier today, Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s climate commissioner made headlines by urging President Obama to take a leadership role in the fight against climate change by rejecting the pipeline project.

“If you had a U.S. administration that would avoid doing something that they could do, with the argument that in the time we are living in and with climate change we are faced with, we should not do everything we can do, then it would be a very, very interesting global signal,” Hedegaard told reporters.

“We can bail out banks, we can bail out member states, but you cannot bail out climate,” she said. “If we just say we must extract all the fossil fuels that we can find in the world, then it’s clear that it will not be possible to stay below the 2 degrees.”

“Nobody is doing enough,” she added. “Europe is not doing enough, the U.S. is not doing enough, China is not doing enough—all of us will have to do more.”

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