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Keystone XL pipeline presents a political predicament

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Keystone XL pipeline presents a political predicament
Keystone XL pipeline presents a political predicament

Washington,11 January, 2015: The Keystone XL pipeline does not run through Minnesota. The big rail routes that might provide a lot additional Canadian crude oil to the U.S. if it is not built do.

As the controversial pipeline passed the U.S. Property on Friday and nears approval in the Republican-controlled Senate, Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation face a difficult balancing act.

Their supporters who are advocates of renewable energy anticipate them to vote against the pipeline. President Obama has threatened to veto the present pipeline bill due to the fact it quick-circuits his administration’s assessment course of action.

But Minnesota politicians who oppose the pipeline flirt with a attainable lengthy-term raise in oil train traffic on tracks that quite a few constituents say are already overloaded with railcars carrying flammable fuel.

“It is a precarious position to be against oil train transport and to be against the Keystone pipeline,” Initial District Democratic Rep. Tim Walz acknowledged.

Environmentalists who voted for Walz have voiced their disappointment that he voted for Keystone XL in 2014. Walz voted for it once again Friday.

“I have people who help me who are frustrated with my vote on this,” Walz mentioned.

He thinks Keystone has now develop into an oversimplified political “litmus test” that will not generate the positive aspects its supporters claim or the harm its opponents assert.

Nevertheless, for Minnesota’s Democrats, the scenario remains politically difficult. Democratic Reps. Collin Peterson and Rick Nolan joined Walz in voting for Keystone XL on Friday. They have been amongst only 28 Property Democrats to do so.

Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken voted against a Keystone XL bill last year when their celebration controlled the Senate, saying it did not allow the administrative assessment course of action to adequately play out. The pipeline approval bill lost. But it is expected to come to a vote subsequent week with Republicans in command.

Neither Klobuchar nor Franken was readily available for interviews on Keystone XL final week. Each issued statements to the Star Tribune and via communications directors mentioned they will continue to vote against any Keystone XL bill that they think circumvents the standard overview course of action. Neither particularly addressed possible increases in Canadian tar sands crude oil shipments by way of Minnesota.

“I have consistently supported allowing the State Division permitting approach to move forward so that all concerns can be aired,” Klobuchar stated. “But this choice cannot be delayed indefinitely, and I think the administration requires to make a choice. … We have rail service and rail safety difficulties that will need to be addressed now, even just before the pipeline troubles are resolved.”

Franken said that “the most significant rail security concerns in Minnesota have to do with transportation of highly volatile Bakken oil, which would only be marginally affected by the building of this pipeline. So regardless of irrespective of whether or not the pipeline is constructed, rail security will continue to be a major challenge in Minnesota unless we upgrade rail vehicles and increase track inspections and infrastructure to protect against derailments.”

Roughly 50 oil trains, some of them a mile extended, already carry Bakken crude oil from North Dakota across Minnesota each and every week.

But Alan Stankevitz, a spokesman for Citizens Acting for Rail Safety, said “there is a concern that [Canadian crude] would be coming through. Any derailment along the Mississippi River would be a disaster.”

Stankevitz mentioned that is because tar sands crude is so heavy that it will sink to the bottom of the river and be complicated and expensive to extract.

How much extra oil would pass by way of Minnesota with no the Keystone XL remains a matter of debate.

The U.S. State Department estimated that Canadian tar sands crude oil could be shipped on 12 to 14 oil trains per week. The greatest market is the United States, but some oil trains could go to ports on the West Coast of Canada for export on oceangoing tankers.

Source finditwestvalley.com

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