Progress on Keystone XL? ....Don't Get Your Hopes Up

Oil pipline in the snow

 

Tuesday the House passed bipartisan legislation to speed up the approval process for cross-border energy projects (ie Keystone XL), despite a promised veto from President Obama.  The bill is known as the “North American Energy Infrastructure Act”, featuring 12 Republican and 8 Democratic co-sponsors. If it passed the Senate, it would establish by law that projects be granted or denied approval within 120 days of the Environmental Impact Study, and more significantly, it would remove the need for Presidential Approval.

Technically the bill doesn’t apply to Keystone XL, because the applications and environmental impact studies are already completed for that proposed project. However, that’s obviously the most glaring example of the need to speed up the process, and probably the impetus for the bill’s submission in the first place. In theory, TransCanada could resubmit their application and be subject to the speedier process. (A motion to prevent TransCanada from resubmitting should the bill pass was handily shut down by a wide margin.) 

It’s unlikely that the bill will get through the Senate with a veto-proof majority, though. It may not even be likely that the bill be considered by the Senate, as Majority Leader Reid has indicated he has no inclination to move this or previous Keystone related bills to the floor if he can help it. 

As you know, the project has been languishing for over 5 years after delay upon delay. Earlier this year, progress looked promising when the Environmental Impact Study found no significant environmental concern to prevent the project from going forward (actually, its more environmentally safe to transport via pipeline than railcar - but I digress...). However, nothing much happened and now the current hold up is purportedly related to a "wait and see" on how a Nebraska district court rules on the proposed pathway for a portion of pipeline in that state.

Frustrating to be sure - but the strong bipartisan nature of the push to move Keystone forward in Congress is an encouraging sign. I'm sure we won't see any real movement until after the midterms, given the polarity of the issue in some areas and the amount of seats up for grabs in the Senate. Hopefully, no matter which way the chips fall in the mid terms, we finally see some real, meaningful progress on what is such an extremely important project for our Energy and National Security. 

 

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