| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
State Department Issues Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on Keystone XL
On Friday, the State Department published a draft of the
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Keystone XL, which
will inform the president’s decision later this year to approve or not approve
the construction of the transboundary pipeline that could deliver an estimate
830,000 barrels a day of crude oil to the United States.
In a conference call on Friday, Assistant Secretary of State
Kerri-Ann Jones noted that the EPA will officially publish the draft report in
about a week for a 45-day public comment period. The president’s decision will
come later this year, likely in the summer.
The 2,000-page report evaluates a number of issues,
including the greenhouse gas emissions associated with Canadian oil sands and
possible alternatives to the pipeline for transporting oil sands to the United
States, including rail transport.
The oil sands, referred to in the draft report as Western
Canadian Sedimentary Basin crudes, “are
more GHG-intensive than the other heavy crudes they would replace or displace
in U.S. refineries, and emit an estimated 17 percent more GHGs on a life-cycle
basis than the average barrel of crude oil refined in the United States in 2005,”
according to the report. “If
the proposed Project were to induce growth in the rate of extraction in the oil
sands, then it could cause GHG emissions greater than just its direct emissions.”
www.cnas.org
2013-03-04 08:02:23
Source:
