Making no major new declarations, the US State Department on Friday issued a 320-page report upholding earlier conclusions about the need for TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline and its potential environmental impacts.
"Although DOS received thousands of comments on a wide variety of topics addressed in the draft EIS during the comment period, no new issues of substance emerged from the comments received," the supplemental draft EIS said.
The report said new information learned during the extra comment period "does not alter the conclusions reached in the draft EIS regarding the need for and the potential impacts of the proposed project."
TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said in a phone interview the company is "pleased that the report has been published," and that publication of the report shows the "process will continue to move forward."
But Howard otherwise declined to comment on the content of the report, saying: "We want to take the time to see what it actually says instead of making a glib reaction.... My understanding is the report went out on a website and it wasn't supposed to.
A State Department contact alerted TransCanada about the report late Friday and a "team of people" at the company was reviewing the report, he added.
TransCanada has proposed building a 1,700-mile oil pipeline that would originate in Alberta, cross the US-Canadian border in Montana, continue through Cushing, Oklahoma, and extend to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The final leg has been postponed while it awaits a permit from the State Department, which must approve the bi-national pipeline project.
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PAN LATEST REVIEW
The environmental group Friends of the Earth assailed the new analysis.
"Unfortunately, the American public is still not getting a complete picture of the many serious dangers that this mega-pipeline would pose," the group said in a statement.
"On first reading, we are concerned that the State Department has still not done a serious and thorough analysis of significant dangers, including the safety of tar sands oil pipelines and the pollution caused by tar sands oil production," the advocacy group said.
But it said the US "has taken an important step in categorically stating that tar sands oil has far higher greenhouse gas emissions than do other forms of oil used in the U.S... this finding alone should lead the State Department to reject the permit for this pipeline."
The report said "it is clear that (Western Canadian) crude oils, as would likely be transported through the proposed project, are on average somewhat more GHG-intensive than the crudes they would displace in the US refineries."
The Natural Resources Defense Council called the review "as inadequate as their first go-round." It said State ignored concerns about pipeline safety, the routing through the Ogallala Aquifer and pollution around refineries.
"The public deserves an in-depth review of these issues," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, NRDC's international program director.
After publishing a final EIS, the department will open a 90-day period to consult with other federal agencies before determining whether to grant Keystone a presidential permit. The public will have 30 days to comment on the final EIS.
The report said State still expects to decide whether to allow the project by the end of 2011.
