For just over a decade, the Keystone XL pipeline has woven its way in and out of major headlines for various controversies, most of which regard the impact of the oil pipeline that runs between the United States and Canada. It’s a game of political ping-pong surrounding the controversial oil line.
As far back as 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the Keystone XL pipeline’s effects on the ecosystem needed to be reviewed more comprehensibly before plans could be furthered on actual development of the pipeline.
Nevertheless, development on the pipeline went underway and Phase 1 of the pipeline was completed in June 2010, running from Hardisty in Alberta, Canada, down to an oil tank farm north of Patoka, Ill., with further extensions to the pipeline connecting it to points in Houston and Port Arthur.
The debate surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline reached Washington, D.C. as early as late November 2011, where President Barack Obama rejected a proposal for his administration to make a decision about the pipeline within 60 days, citing such a deadline “prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact,” according to the Associated Press.
Later, the issue would be brought back up with President Obama, where on Jan. 29, 2015, a bill that approved the full construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives. Obama, however, vetoed the bill, and his veto was unable to be overwritten by a Senate two-thirds majority, CNN reported.
The pipeline sat in limbo until two years later in January 2017, when the then-newly inaugurated President Donald Trump signed an executive order approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, as well as a similar second pipeline known as the Dakota Access.
Now that the pipeline has been operational for several years, it has become the center of environmental scandals. As the Keystone XL pipeline carries tar sands oil, a “thicker, more acidic, and more corrosive than lighter conventional crude [oil],” according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the pipeline is prone to leaks and spills.
In its first year of operation, the Keystone system leaked 12 times. To make matters worse, tar sands oil is more volatile, dangerous and difficult to clean than standard crude oil. In addition, refining tar sands creates three to four times the carbon pollution of conventional crude oil refining, also according to the NRDC.
The Keystone XL pipeline is another example of corporate interests prioritizing capital over conservation, as the pipeline’s history of spills and opposition by environmental groups and agencies shows.
In order to provide a cleaner environment, there seems to be less room for Keystone XLs and Dakota Accesses in the world. Such projects must be phased out for the promise of cleaner air and water.