The Keystone XL pipeline has been a hugely contested project in America for over a decade now, although it is still often misunderstood. Keystone XL is not a new oil pipeline itself, but an extension of the existing Keystone network that transports oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin to the Midwestern and Southern United States. Keystone XL offers a shorter route from the Alberta-Saskatchewan border to Steele City, Nebraska, but at a significant cost.
The Keystone XL extension, after gaining approval in Canada, received an initial Presidential Permit from George W. Bush in 2008, and then in 2012 Barack Obama extended this to the rest of the American section, greenlighting the process. Since this, there has been much back and forth by the US government, with Obama revoking the permit in 2014, before Trump re-granted it in 2017, and finally Biden pulling the plug once again in January. Within the Obama administration, the hesitation seemed to centre around the difficulty of acting in the national interest. Keystone XL offered the potential to generate jobs and ensure a continued supply of oil into the future in a time where the US was wary of dependence on foreign oil. However, it was difficult to reconcile this with the administration’s climate policy; and the general perception that supporting Keystone XL would undermine the US’ climate change policy is what led to the initial revocation of the permit. The Trump administration, with its anti-climate change stance, had no such qualms, and therefore reinstated the permit on economic grounds. The Biden administration, being largely similar in outlook to Obama’s, has shifted back towards a focus on environmental protection and indigenous rights.
But it is first important to understand the controversy of the plan. Keystone XL has sparked anger among local stakeholders that centred largely around the significant environmental concerns associated with the project, which seemed to run contrary to the then current Obama administration’s otherwise forward-looking environmental policies.
Much of the proposed Keystone XL route is through privately-owned (predominantly agricultural) land, so another key concern is the risk of spills. The tar sand oil that Keystone XL would carry is thicker and more corrosive than traditional crude oil (Denchak, 2021), and therefore more prone to leakage. One study found that tar sand oil pipelines spilled an average of three times more per mile than those carrying crude oil (Cornell University Global Labor Institute, 2011). Increased oil spills would have widespread negative environmental and economic ramifications across the Midwest, particularly due to the difficulty in cleaning up such thick oil from terrestrial ecosystems.
The final main environmental concern with Keystone XL is that it will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with the extraction of fossil fuels. There is considerable debate over whether or not the Keystone XL project would add to this, with a 2014 State Department Report claiming that the mining of the tar sands would continue at the same rate irrespective of the pipeline (Brady, 2017), but mining tar oil sands produces 17% more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional oil extraction (Bradshaw, 2015), so this process is even worse for the environment than traditional fossil fuel extraction. By going ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline, the US would be signing up to a continued dependence on this oil supply and the commitment to a role in further carbon emissions.
As a result of these extensive environmental issues, Keystone XL has been the source of large levels of environmental activism. Notably, much of the land threatened by the project is indigenous land; and First Nations peoples have thus been central to the activism movement that has emerged. In fact, indigenous peoples in Canada were among the first protesters against the Keystone project due to the negative environmental and health impacts they faced as a result (Bradshaw, 2015). This has inspired widespread direct action by indigenous groups, as well as environmental activists from groups, such as 350.org (an international environmental organisation), highlighting the environmental and social concerns of stakeholders with regards to the Keystone XL project.
The removal of the Keystone XL permit is an important win for activists; but perhaps more than anything else, it is emblematic of the political shift that the Biden administration represents. It signals that environmental issues and, in particular, climate change, are once again a key priority within US domestic and foreign policy. The change in stance on Keystone XL even within the Obama administration shows how environmental activism, in this case led largely by indigenous groups, can be successful at altering government policy, and gives hope to other movements against environmentally damaging projects such as the Dakota Pipeline.
References:
Bradshaw, E. A. (2015). ‘Blockadia Rising: Rowdy Greens, Direct Action and the Keystone XL Pipeline’. Critical Criminology. Vol. 23, pp.433-448.
Brady, H. (2017). ‘4 Key Impacts of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines’. National Geographic. Available from: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/01/impact-keystone-dakota-access-pipeline-environment-global-warming-oil-health/.
Cornell University Global Labor Institute. (2011). Pipe Dreams? Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of Keystone XL. [Report]. Available from: https://archive.ilr.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/GLI_keystoneXL_Reportpdf.pdf .
Denchak, M. (2021). ‘What Is the Keystone XL Pipeline?’. NRDC. Available from: https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-keystone-pipeline.
Written by: Sam Allen
DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR ONLY AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE VIEWS OR OPINIONS OF COMPASS MAGAZINE AS A WHOLE OR THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY.