Press Release, Sierra Club, June 5 2013

SEATTLE-- Today, the Sierra Club and its partners filed suit against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) and several coal companies for violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The Sierra Club, Puget Soundkeeper, Columbia Riverkeeper, RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, and Friends of the Columbia Gorge sent a 60 day notice in April after collecting evidence demonstrating the companies’ responsibility for emitting coal into waterways in several locations across Washington. Spokane Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently sent a notice letter for these violations as well.

John M. Broder, New York Times, June 4 2013

WASHINGTON — The federal government will hold the first lease sale for commercial offshore wind energy projects at the end of July, the Interior Department announced on Tuesday.

Swagato Chakravorty, Energy and Capital.com, May 29 2013

Requested Pipeline Restrictions

Earlier this month, Enbridge Energy Partners LP (NYSE: EEP) approached the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with a proposal. If the request receives approval from the FERC, it would mean the proportion of hydrogen sulfide permissible in the crude shipped via Enbridge’s North Dakota pipeline would be significantly lowered.

Lisa Song, InsideClimate News, Jun 3, 2013

Canadian energy giant Enbridge is quietly building a 5,000-mile network of new and expanded pipelines that would achieve the same goal as the Keystone.

Damian Carrington, guardian.co.uk, 17 May 2013

Prof James Hansen warns public not to be fooled by 'diversionary tactic' from deniers

Scott Learn, OregonLive.com, May 13 2013

The boom in North Dakota's Bakken oil field is speeding to the Northwest, a boon for ports and refineries that could bring in upwards of 200 million barrels of crude each year on mile-plus oil trains.

Lisa Song, Inside Climate News, May 6 2013

A crucial number is removed, without explanation, from the EPA website that is tracking the cleanup of the 2010 dilbit spill Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

Matt Kelso, Fracktracker.org, Apr 15 2013

Recently, there has been a lot of attention focused on the Mayflower, Arkansas pipeline failure that resulted in a massive oil spill, particularly as it comes at a time when discussions of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project are once again heating up.  However, the situation is far from unusual.  In fact, according to data downloaded from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), there were 1,887 incidents in the nation’s gathering and transmission, distribution, and hazardous liquids pipelines between January 1, 2010 and March 29, 2013, or an average of 1.6 incidents per day.

Edward McAllister, Reuters, Globe and Mail, Apr. 11 2013

MAYFLOWER, ARK. — Warren Andrews had just finished putting up balloons for his stepdaughter’s 18th birthday party at their suburban home in Mayflower, Ark., when his wife came inside and said something was wrong.

After stepping out of his house, and taking one glance, he immediately dialled 9-1-1.

Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, April 5 2013

MAYFLOWER, Ark. — Two women who live near an ExxonMobil pipeline that ruptured last week and spilled thousands of barrels of oil in central Arkansas filed a federal lawsuit against the company on Friday.

By Associated Press, Published: March 22

WASHINGTON — The Senate has endorsed construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is to carry oil from Canada to Texas oil refineries.

Senators voted 62-37 on Friday for the nonbinding measure. Seventeen Democrats and all 45 Republicans voted yes.

WKZO, Kalamazoo, March22 2013

MARSHALL (WKZO) -- Enbridge Energy Partners estimates that the EPA’s order requiring it to dredge sections of the Kalamazoo River where submerged oil remains will push the clean-up bill an additional 175-million dollars, to almost one billion dollars total.

That would be above and beyond what is covered by their insurance policy.

Robert Redford, Huffington Post, March 4 2013

Mr. Secretary, I am disappointed. I thought that we all understood that to fight climate change, we have to be able to say "no" to dirty energy projects. Our friends around the world are looking to us for climate leadership and it starts with drawing the line at tar sands expansion. It also means that we need to give health and environment a fair shake in the environmental review of a dirty energy project such as the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Yet the draft environmental review prepared by the State Department for Keystone XL misses what folks in industry themselves are saying: the Keystone XL project is necessary for expansion of tar sands. We know this means that Keystone XL will make climate change worse.

Shawn McCarthy, Globe and Mail, Mar. 16 2013

HOUSTON — The cherry-red crane looms emphatically over the grey industrial landscape of the Houston shipping channel where a refinery processes crude oil into gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products.

John M. Broder, New York Times, March 14, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Shell Oil Company must provide a detailed plan addressing numerous safety and operational issues that plagued its efforts to extract oil beneath the Arctic Ocean last year if it wants to resume drilling off the coast of Alaska, the Interior Department said Thursday.

Editorial, New York Times, March 11, 2013

The State Department’s latest environmental assessment of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline makes no recommendation about whether President Obama should approve it. Here is ours. He should say no, and for one overriding reason: A president who has repeatedly identified climate change as one of humanity’s most pressing dangers cannot in good conscience approve a project that — even by the State Department’s most cautious calculations — can only add to the problem.

Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams, March 8 2013

Day seven of blockade: Group hopes to slow down the flow of Canadian tar sands oil

Michael Grunwald, Time Magazine, Feb 28 2013

The activists fighting the Keystone XL pipeline are radical-and right

Juliet Eilperin & Steven Mufson, Washington Post, March 1, 2013

US State Dept, March 1 2013

Keystone XL Pipeline Evaluation Process Fact Sheet 2012 [ PDF version   ]

Executive Summary

1.0 Executive Summary Front Cover  [155 Kb]
2.0 Title Page  [1889 Kb]
3.0 Executive Summary  [12305 Kb]
Keystone XL DRAFT SEIS Cover Letter  [95 Kb]
Keystone XL DRAFT SEIS Errata Sheet  [54 Kb]

Shawn McCarthy, Globe and Mail, Mar. 01 2013

OTTAWA — TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline has cleared a significant political hurdle in the United States after a State Department assessment concluded the project would not contribute to the warming of the planet.

In this landmark report, PCI Fossil Fuel Fellow David Hughes takes a far-ranging and painstakingly researched look at the prospects for various unconventional fuels to provide energy abundance for the United States in the 21st Century. While the report examines a range of energy sources, the centerpiece of “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a critical analysis of shale gas and shale oil (tight oil) and the potential of a shale “revolution.”

Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca, Feb 23 2013

Conserving key to energy independence concludes geologist David Hughes.

Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca, Feb 19 2013

A former investment banker says the explosion in shale gas development, such as frenzied activity in northern B.C., was a financial mania largely driven by Wall Street bankers intent on capitalizing upon a record $46-billion worth of mergers and acquisitions that shook up the troubled industry in 2011.

Matthew L Wald, New York Times, Feb 15 2013

Electricity prices in New England have been four to eight times higher than normal in the last few weeks, as the region’s extreme reliance on natural gas for power supplies has collided with a surge in demand for heating.