House Republicans vow to “unleash American energy” as big oil pipeline spill hits Kansas

Near­ly 600,000 gal­lons of oil, equal to 14,000 bar­rels, spilled from the Key­stone Pipeline into a rur­al Kansas creek last week, the country’s largest pipeline spill in twelve years and the twen­ty-third spill since the pipeline became oper­a­tional ear­ly in the past decade.

The pipeline, owned by TC Ener­gy, car­ries up to 600,000 bar­rels a day of heavy oil from the tar stands of north­ern Alber­ta to Cum­ber­land, Oklahoma.

One of America’s major envi­ron­men­tal con­tro­ver­sies arose dur­ing the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, caus­ing the 44th Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States to reject a planned exten­sion (Key­stone XL) to export ter­mi­nals on the Gulf of Mexico.

“The dis­charge has been con­tained and no drink­ing water has been impact­ed,” the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency claimed in a statement.

The spill site is sur­round­ed by pas­ture­land. TC Ener­gy said it had deployed 250 crews to the spill and installed booms and vac­u­um trucks to clean it up.

True impacts of a spill often are not imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent. A 2010 spill from the Enbridge Pipeline in Michi­gan dumped more than a mil­lion gal­lons of oil into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er and ulti­mate­ly cost $1.21 bil­lion to clean up.

The spill is like­ly to grow con­tro­ver­sy that can­not – and should not – be con­tained. Repub­li­cans are set to regain con­trol of the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and push for an “Unleash Amer­i­can Ener­gy” pro­gram that would restore and expand oil drilling in pub­lic lands and waters, min­ing of coal, as well as push for build­ing more refiner­ies and pipelines.

“We should nev­er have shut down the Key­stone Pipeline: That is what Joe Biden did on day one,” Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, R‑Washington, set to chair the pow­er­ful House Ener­gy and Com­merce Com­mit­tee, told CNBC in a pre-elec­tion interview.

Con­tro­ver­sy over Key­stone XL, the pro­posed expan­sion, has tak­en atten­tion from the already exist­ing Key­stone Pipeline, which sup­plies Mid­west refineries.

Many of its spills have been small, some not-so-small.

In 2017, 6,500 bar­rels spilled near Amherst, South Dako­ta, while two years lat­er a 4,500 bar­rel rup­ture took place near Edin­burg, North Dakota.

The Key­stone XL expan­sion has been the holy grail in Repub­li­cans’ ener­gy advo­ca­cy over the last dozen years.

It was also a project on which cli­mate activists drew the line. Envi­ron­men­tal protests, spawned by a new group called 350.org, brought demon­stra­tors to the White House. Actress Daryl Han­nah and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., were arrest­ed in one protest.

Unit­ed States approval of the trans-bound­ary project was “a no-brain­er”, Canada’s then-Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er told a gath­er­ing of approv­ing investors in New York.

Not so. Pres­i­dent Oba­ma reject­ed Key­stone XL.

And protests direct­ed at anoth­er pipeline spread to the Dakotas.

The Stand­ing Rock Sioux tribe argued that the Dako­ta Access Pipeline would endan­ger their drink­ing and irri­ga­tion water. Trib­al mem­bers camped out on the pipeline route and were joined, at one point, by actress Jane Fon­da. The deploy­ment of police dogs did not enhance the image of the pipeline builder.

Don­ald Trump came into office, revers­ing Obama’s deci­sion and giv­ing a green light to Key­stone XL. The 45th pres­i­dent ordered the Sec­re­tary of the Army to expe­dite per­mit­ting for Dako­ta Access. But the path for Key­stone XL was not clear. Envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns held up the project in the courts.

Can­di­date Joe Biden pledged in 2020 to block Key­stone XL, and did upon assum­ing the pres­i­den­cy. TC Ener­gy gave up on the project.

But not Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers. She wants the 1,200-mile project put back on the front burn­er. CMR is to sound bites what Bil­ly Gra­ham was to the Bible. Although Key­stone XL would take years to com­plete – and the oil would be bound for export – she has con­tin­ued to turn out lines like: “We need to flip the switch.”

A recip­i­ent of gen­er­ous con­tri­bu­tions from the Oil Patch, McMor­ris Rodgers has ven­tured down to Texas, warn­ing of Russ­ian oil pro­duc­tion and decry­ing the Green New Deal, while deliv­er­ing a new line: “I think we should put Mid­land over Moscow.” She head­ed oppo­si­tion to the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act on the House floor.

Of course, the argu­ment can be made – to which there is some truth – that pipelines are safer than oil trains in trans­port­ing crude.

The Lac-Megan­tic oil train explo­sion of 2013 destroyed a small town in Que­bec and killed 47 peo­ple. But pipelines do go beneath major rivers and above the Ogal­lala Aquifer, vital to Mid­west agriculture.

The Alber­ta tar sands, pic­tured from the air, look like Mor­dor from Lord of the Rings. Tar sands oil is tough to deal with when spilled. It is heavy and sinks to the bot­tom of any water­way in which it is spilled.

The expan­sion of Canada’s Trans­Moun­tain Pipeline, from Alber­ta to Burn­a­by, B.C., means a sev­en­fold increase in tanker traf­fic through Haro Strait, the bound­ary between our San Juan Islands and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia.

The project has been opposed by Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and for­mer B.C. Pre­mier John Hor­gan and his suc­ces­sor David Eby.

The Sier­ra Club put it well in react­ing to the Key­stone spill in Kansas: “There is no such thing as a safe tar sands pipeline and this is anoth­er dis­as­ter that con­tin­ues to prove we must pro­tect our cli­mate and our com­mu­ni­ties first.”