The following editorial appeared recently in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The U.S. State Department last week put off for at least a year a decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline proposal. The decision had been expected by the end of 2011 but now seems unlikely before early in 2013.
A delay makes sense. Too many disturbing issues continue to swirl around the application by the TransCanada corporation to add 1,600 miles to its existing Keystone 1 pipeline network for Canadian tar sands crude oil.
The XL expansion would allow the company to pump its heated slurry of sludge-like crude oil and solvent from storage sites near Calgary, Alberta, to refining facilities near Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. From those port cities, the Canadian company easily could ship its products to customers overseas.
An existing branch of the 2,151-mile Keystone 1 pipeline crosses northern Missouri and tunnels under the Mississippi River in St. Charles County. It surfaces in Illinois, delivering crude to the Wood River Refinery at Roxana and a storage site at Patoka. The XL expansion would allow TransCanada to bypass the Illinois facilities.
The State Department and the White House said last week that the delay was not motivated by politics, but it still may benefit President Barack Obama politically. The oil, chemical, minerals and mining industries and some labor unions support Keystone XL, while environmental groups and activists and some property rights advocates who oppose the possible use of eminent domain are against it.
Organized labor and the environmental movement are key elements of Mr. Obama's political base; postponing the decision avoids alienating either group until after the next year's election.
In a conference call briefing with reporters last week, Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones said the delay resulted from new concerns that had been raised in Nebraska about the pipeline's route through the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills area.
The Nebraska state legislature is meeting in a special session called by Republican Gov. Dave Heineman to consider enacting laws that would give the state more leverage to challenge the pipeline. The governor supports the pipeline but not the proposed route through parts of the Sand Hills and over the huge Ogallala Aquifer that lies under most of the state.
But those same concerns already had been raised and rejected in the project's environmental impact statement phase. Ms. Jones explained that the current "national interest" phase allows a broader basis for inquiry than the more technical "environmental impact statement" phase.
The State Department's inspector general is investigating possible improprieties with the permitting process. For example, to prepare what turned out to be "no-problems" environmental impact statements, the department approved TransCanada's hiring of a firm with which it has a long-standing financial relationship. Then there are the questionable contacts between department officials and a TransCanada lobbyist who worked on the 2008 presidential campaign of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
U.S. officials should use the next 12 months to explore the serious environmental problems that still surround the project. They also should take a hard look at claims about how many jobs the project supposedly would create. A recent analysis by Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations found that supporters' claims were wildly inflated and impossible to verify.
The more information that becomes available about Keystone XL, the harder it becomes to consider it in the national interest of the United States.