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keystone xl pipeline
Keystone XL By Any Other Name Will Be Just As Crudely Sour
The Big Oil powers that be have a Keystone XL obsession that just won’t die. Opponents are just as adamant that it won’t be built.
Apr 08, 2026
Here we go again.
The Big Oil powers that be have a Keystone XL obsession that just won’t die. Opponents are just as adamant that it won’t be built. The latest industry brainstorm is to bring a whole bunch of dirty tar sands oil from Canada to Guernsey, Wyoming, and then… well, “some future company” would need to build an additional pipeline, in order to get that oil down to refineries on the Gulf Coast. That’s a risky plan for a pipeline investor.
To review: The pipeline company TransCanada, which later became TC Energy and then recently spun off into new corporate entity “South Bow,” first proposed building the Alberta to Texas tar sands pipeline in 2008. As a trans-boundary pipeline, it required not only state permits and land acquisition from farmers and ranchers along the route, but also a Presidential Permit determining it to be in the national interest.
It was sailing along its permitting process despite opposition from First Nations in Canada, when climate scientist James Hansen pointed out that if the super-dirty high-carbon Alberta tar sands were fully developed it would be “game over” for the climate. At the same time, farmers and ranchers in Nebraska noticed that the route went through the fragile Sand Hills region and threatened the Ogallala aquifer. A battle royale ensued, with an unlikely alliance of farmers and ranchers, students, tribal nations, grassroots climate activists, and environmental nonprofits joining together against KXL supporters, which included the Alberta government, the Canadian government, the Republican Party, about half of the Democratic Party, and the entire oil industry.
To call this plan half-baked would be an insult to baking.
Remarkably, the unlikely alliance won. Barack Obama denied the Presidential Permit in 2015. Donald Trump approved it on the first day of his first term, but litigation prevented it from moving forward for the next four years. Joe Biden re-cancelled it on the first day of his presidency, and KXL was not built.
Now, however, there is an inkling of a plan to sort of revive KXL, although “plan” is an exaggeration. A company called Bridger is testing the waters by proposing to take bitumen, the technical term for the thick gooey hydrocarbon also known as tar sands or oil sands, from Alberta and pipe it through Montana to Guernsey, Wyoming. From there, according to press reports, “spurs” would be “bolted on” to take it to refining hubs and to the Gulf Coast for export. But it’s over 700 miles from Guernsey to the hub in Cushing, Olahoma, and over 400 miles to Steele City, Nebraska, where it could connect to existing underutilized pipelines.
Four hundred (400) miles is not exactly a “spur” that you “bolt on.” In fact, that route would require a state permit from the Nebraska Public Service Commission, and the acquisition of land—through eminent domain if necessary—from hundreds of Nebraskans. The process would take years, and generate the same controversy it did back in the early 2010’s. And if South Bow fails to get the full route built before the militantly pro-oil US president is out of office, the cross-border Presidential Permit could be denied—again. That “spur,” potentially cutting across the entire state of Nebraska, is the part that “some future company” would be responsible for. To call this plan half-baked would be an insult to baking.
The current war in Iran is making oil and energy markets more volatile than anytime since the 1970’s, with oil prices over $100. That might make it seem that tar sands oil, which is not only the dirtiest but most expensive oil to produce, could still make money. But in the long run, oil will probably settle somewhere under $100, because that’s where Saudi Arabia, OPEC, and the US producers want it—high enough to generate high profits, but not high enough to provoke recession. And in the even longer run, the world will inevitably electrify transportation, because this dependence on oil, with its wars and spills and price spikes and insecurity and pollution and global warming, is just too crazy.
Let’s add up the risks:
- The US is producing more oil than ever, and doesn’t need dirty Canadian tar sands oil.
- ”The future company” and the second half of the project connecting down to the Gulf may never materialize, making this a pipeline to nowhere.
- If the Venezuelan oil sector is revived, it will have easier access to the Texas refineries and export facilities than Alberta tar sands oil.
- The price of oil in the long run is only marginally high enough for tar sands oil to be profitable.
- The opposition to taking of land by eminent domain will be intense, especially for a project that will export oil.
- A pipeline like this will cost billions of dollars.
- A pipeline like this will spill and contaminate land and water along the route.
- Climate change is still real, even if the US government denies it.
- The US president will not grant a permit with nothing in return; he will want a piece of the action.
Let’s add up the rewards:
- A few thousand short term construction jobs.
- A few dozen permanent jobs.
- Tax revenue for counties along the route.
The risks far outweigh the rewards. Which is why this pipeline should not be built.
The US Bureau of Land Management and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality are now jointly accepting public comments on permit applications for the project through May 1, and holding several public meetings in Montana.
Bold Nebraska, the group that helped lead the original fight against Keystone XL by organizing farmers and ranchers along the route into an unlikely alliance with Tribal Nations, grassroots advocates, and national environmental groups, is collecting comments from citizens for the docket that it will deliver by mail on the May 1 deadline. Click here to use Bold’s form to submit a public comment to oppose the new “Keystone Light” pipeline project.
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Keystone, 'Safest Pipeline in the World,' Ruptures—Again
President Donald Trump wants to revive Keystone XL, a highly controversial extension of the tar sands pipeline system, despite three massive leaks over the past eight years.
Apr 08, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
The Keystone pipeline—which carries hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil nearly 2,700 miles from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma daily—was abruptly shut down Tuesday morning following a rupture in North Dakota, marking yet another accident along what proponents have called the "safest pipeline in the world."
South Bow, the Canadian company that manages the Keystone system, said it shut down the pipeline—which transports an average of around 624,000 barrels of crude oil per day—after detection systems sounded the alarm on a pressure drop. The company said the spill is confined to an agricultural field about 60 miles southwest of Fargo.
"The affected segment has been isolated, and operations and containment resources have been mobilized to site," the company said, according to The Associated Press. "Our primary focus right now is the safety of onsite personnel and mitigating risk to the environment."
As the AP reported:
It wasn't clear what caused the rupture of the underground pipeline or the amount of crude oil released into the field. An employee working at the site near Fort Ransom heard a "mechanical bang" and shut down the pipeline within about two minutes, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality. Oil surfaced about 300 yards (274 meters) south of the pump station in a field and emergency personnel responded, Suess said.
A proposed extension known as Keystone XL would have carried more tar sands oil—widely considered the world's dirtiest fuel—to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Opponents warned of the danger of leaks, with a 2021 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office noting that there were 22 accidents along the conduit between 2010 and 2020. These include leaks of more than 100,000 gallons per spill in 2017, 2019, and 2022.
"Keystone's incident history illustrates the problematic pipeline's systemic issues," Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said in a statement Tuesday. "The Keystone pipeline appears to be on track to hit its average of about a significant failure every year. It's time to address this pipeline's shortcomings."
Following more than a decade of pressure from climate, environmental, Indigenous, and other groups, then-President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL's permit on his first day in office in January 2021. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a "drill, baby, drill" platform, now wants to revive Keystone XL.
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A Dangerous Pipeline and Why Pete Buttigieg Would Be a Bad Choice for VP
Kamala Harris needs to lead the country in addressing this biggest of all problems: our climate crisis and the dominance of the fossil fuel industry in our politics and policies.
Jul 29, 2024
President Joe Biden lost a lot of support, especially among young voters and climate voters, when he approved the foolish Willow Project. The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was equally unpopular with those groups but they rightfully placed most of the blame for that project on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V).
What a lot of people, including reporters, don’t realize is that Pete Buttigieg, as Secretary of Transportation, had (and still has) the power to stop MVP. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) reports to Buttigieg and PHMSA, as its name implies, has the authority and responsibility to ensure the pipelines are built and operated safely. But the MVP was not built—nor is it operating—safely. That is not an opinion pulled out of thin air by a climate activist. Rather it is the conclusion of a study done by TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), the company that wanted to build the Keystone XL Pipeline (KXL). That study was the subject of an article (pg 16) in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue of Corrosion Management, a journal of the Institute of Corrosion.
This topic has been written about extensively for over a year. If reporters and other readers want to understand the particulars they can find them here. The long and short of it is that the TC Energy/KXL study proved that MVP’s corrosion-proof coating is “no longer fit for purpose.” That’s a pretty damning indictment, especially given the enormous diameter (42 inches) of MVP and the extremely high pressure it will be operating under. It’s particularly scary for all those who live within MVP’s blast zone.
MVP is made of thick steel. It isn’t going to corrode extensively tomorrow or anytime right away. But pipelines like MVP are built with the intention that they will operate for many, many decades, which is why legally they MUST have an adequate corrosion-proof coating. Otherwise they will corrode prematurely which could lead to a massive explosion. Delaney Tercero was 3 when a 10 inch gas pipeline exploded near her home because defective coating allowed the pipe to corrode. She died 2 days later in a hospital burn unit. Again, MVP is 42 inches.
The National Association of Pipe Coating Applicators (NAPCA) recommends that the pipe coating that was applied to MVP pipe should not be exposed to the harmful rays of the sun for more than 6 months. MVP pipe sat out in the sun for 6-7 years. A KXL pipeline manager, speaking at an oil and gas forum in Canada, said that, when the coating has deteriorated to such a degree, the pipe either needs to be replaced or sent back to the factory for stripping, cleaning, and recoating. He said this is a problem that can’t be remedied in the field. MVP pipe was neither replaced nor properly recoated. It was just quickly buried and covered up, as if that would make the problem go away.
Pete Buttigieg is obviously a very smart guy. He’s articulate, does his homework and has a knack for making members of Congress look ridiculous when they try to question him. If anyone can explain why the KXL coating study doesn’t apply to MVP, it would be Secretary Buttigieg. But neither he nor PHMSA nor MVP nor anyone else has ever offered that explanation. Buttigieg seems to pop up everywhere these days but he hasn’t met with the people who live next to MVP and been willing to address their fears about the defective pipe coating. And the reason he hasn’t is because he can’t explain away the KXL study’s obvious relevance to MVP which leaves him unable to defend PHMSA’s decision to allow MVP to operate.
And this problem isn’t limited to MVP. Pipeline giant, Williams, has just built pipelines in Louisiana and Pennsylvania using old pipe intended for the now-dead Constitution Pipeline in NY. That pipe has been sitting out in the sun for over a decade. Williams has now buried it right next to houses, schools, playgrounds, ball parks, through golf courses and under interstate highways.
Essentially, despite all their posturing, Pete Buttigieg and PHMSA are just part of the Good Ol’ Boy network that oversees much of our country’s energy regulatory system which remains heavily controlled by the fossil fuel industry. Up and down the chain of command people go along to get along, as pointed out in this article that Bill McKibben called landmark by Mike Soraghan of Politico’s E&E News. That system has resulted in America being the largest oil and gas producer ever, which is deplorable given the scientific consensus regarding climate change. It is why we are so far behind in achieving our climate goals.
Kamala Harris needs to lead the country in addressing this biggest of all problems. She needs to separate herself from the Good Ol’ Boy network. She should start by picking someone other than Pete Buttigieg to be her VP.
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