Constricting the Climate Debate?
Debate over the Keystone XL pipeline illustrates how the climate discussion has devolved into simplistic positions either for or against the economy and environment.
Image: Screenshot Keystone XL- Maps https://www.keystonexl.com/maps/
On his first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order cancelling the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The order rescinds a March 2019 presidential permit issued by the Trump Administration which greenlit a proposed 1,179 mile pipeline connecting oil sands in Alberta, Canada with Steele City, Nebraska in the U.S.
The move, a central part of the Biden Administration’s ambitious climate agenda, has garnered reaction from world leaders, lawmakers in the U.S., and climate activists. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his “disappointment” with President Biden’s decision. Republican and Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, toed their party lines, respectively arguing that the executive order either eliminated jobs or was a necessary response to climate change. Activists rejoiced, but many argue that the Biden Administration will have to do more to protect the environment.
These reactions are nothing new. The Keystone XL project – also known as KXL – has become a symbolic battleground for climate change policy as a whole.
As it stands, a flurry of executive orders, campaign promises to start/stop construction, and extensive media coverage forces the complex impacts of the KXL into a narrow environment vs. economy debate. This debate presents an impossible choice between assured environmental disaster on one hand and a desperately needed boost to the economy on the other.
But drawing the battle lines in this way stifles an expanded and much needed discussion about climate policy in general.
Politics of a pipeline
There is already a network of pipes connecting Canada’s oil fields to U.S. refineries and depots in Oklahoma, Illinois, and Texas. Known as the Keystone Pipeline System, the network was proposed by TransCanada Corporation in 2005 and currently transports around 550,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The KXL, proposed in 2008, aims to add an additional 830,000 barrels per day by using a larger dimeter pipe (than currently in use) and shortening the distance between Alberta, Canada and Steele City, Nebraska, a major point in the distribution system.
The first three phases of the Keystone Pipeline System were approved and constructed without opposition. Only the KXL has generated controversy. Environmental groups began protesting the pipeline in 2011, a year before the 2012 U.S. election. By 2015, Former President Obama’s refusal to issue a construction permit galvanized the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to force construction without executive approval. Since then, the KXL has largely become a party-line issue. Speaking to the New York Times in 2015, Robert N. Stavins, the director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program said that the “political fight about Keystone is vastly greater than the economic, environmental or energy impact of the pipeline itself.”
But the problem isn’t just that the KXL debate has become politicized at the expense of a factual reckoning. It’s also that the prevailing economy vs. environment discourse muddies the waters when it comes to what the relevant facts are and, more importantly, how they should be weighted.
Weighing a few facts
Take for instance, the possible environmental impacts of the pipeline. A 2014 U.S. State Department report found that such spills – an operational normality – wouldn’t lead to environmental disaster because they could be managed with regular maintenance and observation. The report is often cited by those arguing the KXL’s economic benefits outweigh its negligible climate effects.
But, the State Department’s assessment also needs to be considered alongside conclusions drawn by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2015 and scientific studies which collectively suggest the KXL may facilitate an increase in greenhouse emissions if the price of oil decreases. Different kinds of environmental impact with varying orders of magnitude complicate a simplistic story of either economic ruin or climate chaos, making blind support for or opposition to the pipeline a scientifically uninformed position.
A discussion about the jobs KXL is expected to create is just as unsophisticated because it doesn’t include what kind of work will be created and for whom.
For instance, critics argue that stopping the pipeline “kills” 11,000 jobs – yet fail to mention that these would have been temporary construction positions. In fact, The Washington Post reported in 2015 that KXL’s two year construction period would create around 42,000 direct and indirect positions in a variety of industries, with only 35 permanent jobs. But it is one thing to conclude that the KXL will then have a negligible impact on the economy. It is entirely another to ignore how the loss of these temporary jobs might affect specific communities that rely on construction revenue.
The environment vs. economy frame obscures such complexities on both sides, blowing the KXL out of proportion at the expense of deeper policy debate.
Climate stakes
All things considered, the KXL is an unnecessary project with a low long-term payout. For instance, in a 2014 statement Former President Obama stated that “this pipeline would neither be a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others.”
In the end, though, the problem is that debate over the KXL might not be symbolic of the environmental challenges we face as much as it illustrates how the climate discussion has devolved into simplistic positions for/against the economy/environment.
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