Johanns seeks clarity from Clinton over TransCanada pipeline

Johanns is asking Clinton to clarify remarks she made Friday evening at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, where she suggested the department was going to approve the Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline project.
 
The day before Clinton’s San Francisco speech, Johanns sent Clinton a letter laying out his concern that the pipeline could soil drinking water in his state. He urged the department to consider alternative routes.
 
“I do not object to oil pipelines in Nebraska, but there is heightened environmental sensitivity when a pipeline traverses an irreplaceable natural resource, the Ogallala Aquifer, with little examination of potentially preferable alternatives,” Johanns wrote Thursday.
 
Backers of the pipeline say the concerns from Johanns are overblown.
 
“The Ogallala Aquifer underlies 175,000 square miles across portions of eight states. It’s pretty remarkable to imagine that this one pipeline, and apparently none of the ones already in place there, poses such a threat that the senator would feel compelled to take exception with Secretary Clinton’s mere ‘inclination’ to approve the permit for the Keystone XL,” said Michael Whatley, vice president of Consumer Energy Alliance.

“Not only will this project create thousands of jobs in Nebraska, it will help ensure an affordable, reliable fuel supply for the farmers, truckers, small businesses and families [in the state],” Whatley added.
 
Clinton cautioned Friday that the analysis of the project is not complete but said the State Department is “inclined” to approve it due to the continued need to import oil.

The U.S., Clinton said, is “either going to be dependent on dirty oil from 
the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada.” That will continue to be the case “until we can get our act together as a country and figure out that clean, renewable energy is in both our economic interests and the interests of our planet,” she said.
 
A State Department spokesman Wednesday said the department was expecting to finish reviewing “thousands of comments” on the project by the end of the year and that no timeline is set for announcing a decision on the project.
 
Johanns is one of the only Republican critics of the proposed pipeline, which dozens of House Democrats and environmental groups have criticized. The proposed route for the expansion of a the existing pipeline crosses five states — Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas.