Reporters sparred with a State Department spokesperson on Friday, hoping to glean information about the agency’s final report on the Keystone XL pipeline, after a critical legal obstacle was lifted earlier in the day.
The Nebraska Supreme Court tossed out a lawsuit challenging the pipeline project in a decision that upholds the route approved by the state’s governor.
Spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters following the ruling that department agencies must now “complete their consideration of whether the proposed project serves the national interest and provide their views to the department.”
But, she said, an assessment on how long it will take the department to finish its review was not yet available.
Reporters took issue with the delay.
“The State Department has been accused by some people of deliberately stalling this whole exercise,” responded AP reporter Matt Lee. “If you’re saying now the removal of the obstacle to completing the review doesn’t mean it can be completed quickly…that’s going to add fuel to the fire of the criticism.”
Last year, the Obama administration instructed the State Department to shelve its Keystone study until after the court’s decision.
Psaki didn’t offer any defense. “We’ll be in touch soon with the agencies to give them a timeline on when we’ll need their input back,” she said.
It will be up to Secretary John Kerry to issue a final national interest determination on the project once the department completes its review.
One of Secretary Kerry’s former colleagues is already applying pressure in an appeal to reject the pipeline.
“I urge you to determine that Keystone XL is not in our national interest and deny the project’s permit,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote in a letter to Kerry on Friday. He added, “The events of the last year make it clearer than ever that Keystone XL will significantly increase carbon pollution. The pipeline fails the President’s climate test and is not in our national interest.”
The State Department frustrated environmentalists last year when it released its Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) on the proposed pipeline–the report concluded the project had negligible effects on climate change. In his letter, Sen. Whitehouse objected to that conclusion.
“The FSEIS incorrectly downplays the importance of the pipeline for tar sands development and the climate. It uses a flawed frame of reference by assuming that business-as-usual growth in carbon pollution is acceptable,” he said.
So far, Kerry has given no indication on how he’ll decide. In 2012, while sill serving in the Senate, Kerry voted down a Republican amendment that would have forced construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. That measure, resurrected this week in the new 114th Congress, passed the House on Friday just hours after the Nebraska court decision.
As The Sentinel reported earlier his week, President Obama issued a veto threat against the bill. But that veto threat made no mention of the environmental impacts of Keystone XL. Instead, the president said the bill infringes on an executive process already underway.
Following the court ruling today, that process is one step closer to a conclusion.
