The Keystone XL Rejection: A Turning Point?
By Olivia Langley
8/16/2016
On February 24, 2016, local communities, tribal nations and environmental activists celebrated President Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline. Five months later, the symbolic nature of this victory deserves revisiting. Although the Obama Administration made significant headway by rejecting the pipeline, the fight against oil extraction is hardly over. In light of the proposed Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022, Arctic territory is still drillable under U.S. jurisdiction.
The Keystone XL was a proposed extension of the existing Keystone pipeline, which transports oil from the tar-sands in Hardisty, Canada to refineries in Nebraska, down to the Gulf Coast. Obama rejected the northern leg of the pipeline that was set to run directly from the Canadian tar sands into the United States. The extension would have facilitated TransCanada’s exportation and exploitation of Canadian oil; it has been estimated that this leg of the pipeline would have transported roughly 800,000 barrels of oil a day.
Its rejection, nonetheless, is symbolic for several reasons. Firstly, the TransCanada Corporation is going to find a way to extract the oil with or without the help of the United States. Secondly, the entire pipeline was built save for the leg that runs through the international border, which means that pipeline externalities, including leakage and the displacement of citizens, have already occurred. Although President Obama’s veto prevented the United States from enabling the release of harmful emissions, we have yet to commit to any binding emissions reductions. Today’s policy approach is not enough; we need proactive reductions in carbon emissions to avoid catastrophe.
The most important symbol here, though, is the fact that the United States chose to oppose Keystone XL, even though this also meant rejecting cheaper and more efficient ways for the U.S. to access oil. It also prevented the U.S. from increasing its national energy security, since its dependency on multiple nations for oil would have decreased. On another note, it signaled that the president is listening to climate activists’ demands.
But the fact remains that drilling for oil continues, with U.S. approval. The U.S. Department of the Interior recently issued its final regulations for drilling in the Arctic. The regulations raise standards for drilling safety, making extraction more difficult. But without a complete moratorium on oil extraction, the climate remains under threat from our dangerous fossil fuel dependence.
The Keystone XL rejection is an important symbol, but what does the decision even signify if we continue to support drilling projects at home and abroad? We cannot view the rejection of the Keystone XL as a turning point in our national stance towards the environment.
We need to ensure that national pledges to protect the environment are more about taking action than making verbal promises. A remarkable symbolic gesture can easily whither into nothing - and the idea that the U.S. might follow through with offshore leasing for drilling in the Arctic proves just that.
