State Department tries to gloss over impacts of environmentally disastrous KXL pipeline

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline—you remember, the one that would threaten some of our country’s most sensitive waterways and aquifers and encourage the burning of climate-killing tar sands oil—got more wind in its sails this week after the U.S. State Department released a woefully deficient environmental assessment of the pipeline’s new route through Nebraska. According to the draft environmental assessment released Monday, the pipeline would have only minor to moderate effects on water, biological resources, soil, our shared climate, and air quality. Environmentalists and Nebraskans beg to differ, and the decade-long fight against KXL is far from over. Numerous regulatory and legal challenges remain in the pipeline’s path, and the State Department’s latest attempt to circumvent the law isn’t going to help its case.