The Republican Congress is pushing the Keystone XL pipeline because of backing from rich constituents even though it faces a presidential veto, creates few permanent jobs, sends its oil to the international market, threatens the US with spills and the burning of dirty dirty oil with impacts to air, water and climate. Not to name names, but the initials of the biggest US backers with the most to gain are K-O-C-H. Oh, wait a minute, that’s the Koch brothers.
The Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to President Obama February 2nd that mentioned spills, but emphasized tar sands oil’s impact on climate:
“The analysis of climate change issues has also improved from the Draft SEIS. The Final SEIS makes clear that oil sands crude has significantly higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than other crudes. The Final SEIS states that lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from development and use of oil sands crude is about 17% greater than emissions from average crude oil refined in the United States on a wells-to-wheels basis.”1. (1. Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Executive Summary, p. ES-15)
The final tally from extraction, refining and burning of tar sands oil running through Keystone XL at full capacity (830,000 barrels per day) would result in an additional 1.3 to 27.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year compared to reference crude oils. Those top numbers are like adding the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 7.8 coal fired power plants or 5.7 million cars. In the 50 year life of the pipes, that’s as much as 1.37 billion more tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/nepa/20140032.pdf
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/03/3618612/epa-keystone-obama-rejection/