[ad_1]
In a demonstration this month against a pipeline pumping heavy Canadian oil into the U.S., actress and activist Jane Fonda held up a poster with an image of Joe Biden. It was said, “President Biden, which side are you on?”
The message, from protests against the expansion of Enbridge’s Line 3 project in Minnesota, succinctly picks up on a growing problem for Biden.
The president has been pressured by activists to intervene to slow the development of new fossil fuel infrastructure, but is reluctant to take too heavy an approach.
In his first day in office, Biden issued a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, a $ 8 billion totem project that would also have brought Canadian crude to Gulf Coast refineries, causing it to be Abandoned this month.
But in other projects it has been less decisive. Activists had wanted to lead the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reverse its position on permits for both the Line 3 project and the Dakota Access (DAPL) pipeline, which transports oil south from the North Dakota Bakken shale. In both cases, his administration rejected it, leaving the matter to the courts to decide.
It has also moved away from a dispute between Canada and Michigan over another Enbridge pipeline, Line 5, where the Calgary-based company challenged an order from the state governor to close it.
This approach has infuriated activists.
“Biden’s climate credibility is online,” said Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org, a climate pressure group. “I think right now it’s pretty clear that only the federal government can do what needs to be done on line 3, on DAPL and also on others.”
The president ran for office on a platform to combat climate change. But despite some of the steps it has taken, such as joining the Paris climate deal, proposing unprecedented federal support for clean energy and stopping new drilling leases on federal land, activists they want him to take a tougher line against an industry that promised to “move” away from.
Pipelines have become a hotbed among climate activists and the oil and natural gas industry. The former argue that the new projects encourage greater production of fossil fuels over the next few decades at a time when the world should be shifting towards cleaner energy sources. The latter maintains that these projects remain essential for the constant supply of affordable fuel. U.S. oil demand averages 20 million barrels a day.
The success of TC Energy’s campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline has spurred many more against other projects across the United States.
“The idea was: you can’t organize people around hundreds of coal plants, but you can choose something really high that you can try to kill,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, director general of the Climate Policy Laboratory. Tufts University Fletcher School.
Some campaigns have proven to be effective. The Atlantic Coast Gas Pipeline, which reportedly transported natural gas from West Virginia wells to East Coast utilities, was Abandoned last year, after legal challenges, costs skyrocketed. The DAPL entered service in 2017 despite intense protests, but its future is based on a new environmental review after narrowly avoiding a court order. close last year.
Courts last week handed another victory to environmentalists, who had taken a new approach in their efforts to prevent new construction. The Environmental Protection Fund argued that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had failed to establish the necessary market demand for the Spire STL pipeline in the Midwest, as the company had relied on contracts with a subsidiary to demonstrate the need. The court agreed.
“It’s one more arrow to match opponents,” said Paul Patterson, an analyst at Glenrock Associates. “It seems environmentalists are looking more for the economy.”
FERC President Richard Glick, who had opposed the initial certification, dit the ruling underscored the need for the commission to review how it assesses new interstate pipelines with a “legally enduring approach to assessing needs.”
Despite the series of disturbances, pipeline executives have argued that too much attention has been paid to certain cases while construction continues behind the scenes.
“Most people focus only on the shiny object,” said John Stoody, vice president of the Oil Pipe Lines Association, an industry group. “There’s a lot of pipeline development and construction going on every day in the US.”
In the five-year period between 2015 and 2019, 16,000 miles of pipelines and 44,000 miles of pipelines were built, according to the U.S. transport department – an increase of 8% and 3%, respectively.
Biden has tightened some environmental requirements affecting the new pipes. The Environmental Protection Agency has said it will authorize states to deny water quality permits to infrastructure projects, giving them an effective veto, after the Trump administration diluted his authority in this regard.
On line 5, the Army Corps of Engineers said last week that it would conduct one more rigorous environmental review, which Enbridge said would delay plans to upgrade the line.
“I think we’ll see the permitting process get tighter and tougher on the front, so the risk goes back to where it was before the Trump administration,” said Christi Tezak, an analyst at ClearView Energy Partners. Permits would be more difficult to obtain, but would be more legally lasting once granted, he added.
However, when it comes to taking a stand on individual projects such as Line 3, Line 5 and the DAPL, the president walks in line. Government attorneys testified on June 23 in a lawsuit that the Army Corps of Engineers had properly assessed the impact of the Enbridge Line 3 project and asked the court to reject objections from local tribes and environmentalists.
Previous administrations had faced similar dilemmas between the country’s environmental and community interests and energy security, said Jaffe of the Climate Policy Lab.
“So far no one has done well,” he said. “What I would say about the Biden administration is that trying to address it well and addressing it well means everyone will be unhappy.”
[ad_2]
Source link
