United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard expressed support for the Administration’s decision to challenge partisan politics and not bow to Republican pressure to prematurely approve TransCanada’s permit to develop a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline.  The Keystone XL Pipeline would transport crude oil and bitumen from Alberta, Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.

“The Administration made the right decision to ensure that a project of this scale is done in a way that is good for both jobs and the environment,” said Gerard. “The White House is facing forces in Congress that have decided to use this project as a litmus test for their commitment to jobs, at the same time as they have blocked the door to every one of the Administration’s job proposals, but the fact is more time is needed to ensure that this project will have the economic and environmental benefits claimed by the developer.”

Proponents of the pipeline estimate that the project will create 13,000 construction jobs, 7,000 manufacturing jobs and allow the U.S. to supply our oil needs with Canada, a long-standing ally instead of unstable nations.

“While the jobs projections are promising, more needs to be done to ensure that North American companies and workers will benefit,” said Gerard. “We’ve seen too many instances where key elements of our nation’s infrastructure were outsourced to foreign producers – such as the $7 billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge project that is being built using questionable steel from a state-owned Chinese company.

“That project is a slap in the face to American manufacturing workers at a time when unemployment is still high and U.S. factories are still closing.  We have to make sure that if there is going to be a TransCanada pipeline, manufacturing workers will benefit by using as much North American material as possible in its construction.”

The USW says that the State Department’s decision to deny the current permit does not prevent the potential development and deployment of a TransCanada pipeline as the door remains open for the project to be proposed again.  In fact, TransCanada, the lead company on the pipeline project, already has said it intends to re-apply for the needed permits.

“When dealing with our nation’s infrastructure, we have to make sure that we tap all of our capacity and ingenuity to build and repair it,” said Gerard. “That means making sure that as many of the component parts – from the pipe to the valves and cement – are made using North American materials.”

Much to the dismay of our idled members at U.S. Steel’s Granite City Steel facility, in 2009 TransCanada sourced most of the pipe from India for the initial stages.  At that time, over 2,000 Steelworkers were laid off for lack of orders.  To add insult to injury, the Indian pipe destined for the ConocoPhillips/TransCanada pipeline sat right outside the idled steel plant.

“Ensuring a domestic supply chain is our only chance to grow both the American workforce and our critical manufacturing sector,” said Gerard. “When TransCanada presents its new proposal for a pipeline, the USW looks forward to working with the Administration and others to ensure that the eventual project is done in the safest and most economically beneficial way for our members and their communities,” said Gerard.

The USW represents 850,000 workers in North America employed in many industries that include metals, rubber, chemicals, paper, oil refining and the service and public sectors.

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Audubon President David Yarnold Calls Obama Decision on Keystone Pipeline “A Victory for Common Sense.”

Full Statement:

“This was a gutsy call by the President. But it was also a victory for common sense.  You don’t pipe potentially lethal goo through one of America’s largest wetland ecosystems.

“An environmental disaster of epic proportions has been avoided by the rejection of the Keystone pipeline, but we need to stand shoulder to shoulder to avoid such close calls in our future.

“The pipeline would have sent the world’s dirtiest oil — from Canada’s tar sands — over 1,700 miles through our countries farms, ranches, and through the Ogallala Aquifer — the source of drinking water for 2 million people. Nearly 2,000 rivers, streams and other water bodies were in danger of repeating the Kalamazoo River disaster.

“One of the world’s foremost experts on the damage Climate Change poses, NASA’s James Hansen, called the pipeline ’essentially game over’ for any hopes of stemming carbon emissions from fossils fuels.

“It’s time for a new game to begin. President Obama can take this strong stance further by pressing for incentives for renewable energies, creating Green jobs, and challenging America’s entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and inventors to envision a future without fossil fuels.

“We also urge the administration to reject any reapplication of TransCanada for an alternate route through the sensitive habitat of Nebraska’s Sandhills.

“The 19,000 square miles Sandhill ecosystem in south-central Nebraska are internationally important migratory stopover sites. Known as the ‘pinch in the hourglass’ of the central flyway, this area provides a refueling and resting site each spring for more than 10 million waterfowl and 300,000 shorebirds, including more than 80 percent of the global population of Sandhill cranes.

“As this issue is debated in the future we encourage the President to continue to stand firm in his opposition to this harmful project.”

Stephen C. / Shutterstock.com

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The U.S. natural gas market is going to have to change dramatically for pipeline developers to salvage their plan to ship gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 states, a key federal official said today at the Platts Energy Podium.

“It is going to take a big turnaround in the market, no doubt about it,” Larry Persily, federal coordinator of Alaska Natural Gas Transportation Projects, said at the newsmaker event in Washington, D.C. TransCanada and ExxonMobil have been working with state and federal officials on plans to build a $40 billion, 48-inch-diameter pipeline from the North Slope to the Canadian border, where Canadian pipelines would carry gas to the Lower-48.

However, shale gas development has dampened U.S. demand for the gas, and North Slope producers BP, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil met with the Alaska Governor, Sean Parnell, last week to discuss alternatives to the project, including a pipeline to a new liquefied natural gas export project.

After the meeting, BP CEO, Bob Dudley, and ConocoPhillips CEO, Jim Mulva, said the LNG project seemed to be a better way to get the gas to market, casting growing doubts on the viability of the pipeline. On Tuesday, Persily acknowledged that the pipeline’s future hinges on the producers. “It is going to take concurrence of the three producers.

They are the ones that control the vast majority of the leased acreage, the production coming out of there. They are the ones that are going to have to sign 20-year firm shipping commitments on the pipeline worth more than $100 billion.” Persily said he thought the project had a 50-50 chance of being constructed by 2020. “I haven’t given up on the project. … What it would take is the companies believing the market is there at a sufficient price.”

He also noted that there are key benefits to building the pipeline instead of the LNG project. The Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act provides federal loan guarantees for the pipeline, and $21 billion worth of guarantees are currently authorized, he said. The law also allows for accelerated depreciation for the pipeline and an enhanced oil recovery investment tax credit for the gas treatment plant, which together are worth more than $1 billion in tax savings, he added.

“All that applies if you build a pipeline to move gas to the Lower 48. If it is an exclusively export-only line, unless federal law is changed, you don’t get those benefits,” Persily said. Meanwhile, the United States Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, also speaking at the Podium event, said the U.S. is working to give Shell an answer on the company’s plans to drill several exploratory wells this summer in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

Hayes, who was appointed by President Obama to chair an interagency task force on Alaska energy development, said meetings at both a secretarial and staff level are being held regularly on Shell’s plans. ”We are committed to give them a timely up or down,” Hayes said.

The Interior Department has already given conditional approval to Shell’s exploration plans for the Beaufort and Chukchi. But the company has yet to submit applications for individual permits to drill specific wells, Hayes said. Hayes also said Interior will not budge on a condition that Shell end its drilling program about 38 days short of the time the company had requested. Hayes said the time was needed for the drilling of a relief well in the event of a blowout.

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