Pipe Dreams
Presidential candidates don鈥檛 usually squabble over underground infrastructure. So how did the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline become the biggest environmental issue of the election?
SEPTEMBER 2008: Energy company applies for a U.S. permit to build Keystone XL.
FEBRUARY 2009: The State Department launches an environmental-impact study with Cardno Entrix鈥攁 consulting firm hired by Trans-Canada in the past.聽
AUGUST 2011: The study finds that Keystone will have 鈥渘o material impact鈥� on the environment.
NOVEMBER 2011: Some 12,000 protesters encircle the White House. Days later, President Obama postpones his decision and requests further environmental review.
NOVEMBER 2011: Republican lawmakers introduce legislation aimed at forcing Obama to make a decision on Keystone.
JANUARY 2012: The president rejects TransCanada鈥檚 application; Mitt Romney refers to the pipeline for the first time, slamming Obama.
FEBRUARY 2012: TransCanada announces that it will split the pipeline in two and build the section from Oklahoma to Texas, which doesn鈥檛 require a permit to cross the U.S. border.
MARCH 2012: Obama fast-tracks the southern leg of the pipeline, boasting that his administration has laid enough pipeline 鈥渢o circle the earth.鈥�
APRIL 2012: Romney that he will 鈥渂uild that pipeline if I have to do it myself.鈥�
NOVEMBER 2012: THE RETURNS ARE IN!
Whether Obama or Romney wins may hardly matter: insiders say the pipeline will probably happen either way in early 2013. If he鈥檚 reelected, chances are Obama will let the second environmental-impact study run its course, then approve a plan, albeit with conditions. (He could, say, tie it to new vehicle emissions regulations.) And if Romney is elected? Despite his campaign promises, he can鈥檛 make Keystone his first order of business. He, too, will have to wait for the study.
Loaded Questions
Essential info on what’s in the pipe
Didn鈥檛 they alter the route for Keystone XL?
Yes. TransCanada has proposed rerouting a 100-mile section around Nebraska鈥檚 Sandhills wetlands. But the new route still crosses the 174,000-square-mile Ogallala Aquifer, a source of drinking water and irrigation for eight states.
Who gets the oil?
Refineries in Texas, many of which are owned by three big companies鈥擵alero, Total, and Shell-Saudi Aramco鈥攖hat export much of their product to Latin America and Europe.
Who loses?
Midwesterners accustomed to cheap gas, thanks to a supply glut at the refinery hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, which Keystone XL will relieve. Some experts think prices could jump 50 cents a gallon in the Midwest.
What鈥檚 in the stuff?
Tar-sands oil, or bitumen, is a nearly solid fuel laden with sulfur and heavy metals. To make it flow through the pipe, diluents are blended in. These are often natural-gas liquids, which can include the carcinogen benzene.
If we don鈥檛 build Keystone, won鈥檛 the oil just go to China?
It鈥檚 true that China is very interested in Alberta. But the U.S.-or-China equation is simplistic鈥攖his is about the global oil market. 鈥淣orth America is in the hot seat to turn on more oil than we could need for the next 100 years,鈥� says Deborah Gordon, a climate expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 鈥淏ut if we turn it on all at once, we鈥檙e going to crash the market.鈥�