Greens: New Keystone arguments fail ‘laugh test’

Environmental groups are brushing off new arguments in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline by its developer, calling them nonsensical and unconvincing.

The groups, which include the Natural Resources Defense Council, 350.org and Environment America, said in a Wednesday statement that TransCanada Corp.’s letter to Secretary of State John Kerry the previous day does not pass the “laugh test.”

{mosads}“They have reason to be concerned,” the greens said of TransCanada. “Recent polling has suggested the pipeline is losing favor over time among the American public, and President Obama has been increasingly critical in his comments about the project, noting that the pipeline ‘bypasses the United States’ and that tar sands is ‘extraordinarily dirty.’”

In the Tuesday letter, the company behind the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline wrote that Canada’s latest international climate commitment, along with Alberta’s plans to raise its carbon tax, strengthen the climate change argument in favor of Keystone.

“Each of these are directly relevant to the President’s statement that the proposed project will not be determined to be in the national interest absent a finding that it would not ‘significantly exacerbate’ climate change,” the company wrote.

But the greens did not buy it.

For one, Alberta’s carbon rule updates are largely symbolic and inadequate to get the province where it needs to be to stop climate change, the greens said.

The groups said it is absurd to tout Canada’s climate commitments for a carbon-intensive project. Furthermore, TransCanada’s own clean energy initiatives do not make up for Keystone, they said.

“For all TransCanada’s claims that recent political and economic developments have helped their cause, the reality is that the case for Keystone XL has never been weaker,” the green groups said.

“The tar sands pipeline would be a disaster for the climate, and by rejecting it President Obama has an opportunity to take a major step in the right direction on global climate action.”