WASHINGTON - A congressional hearing Wednesday on the Keystone XL pipeline produced plenty of rhetorical fireworks but little guidance about the actual future of the controversial project.
The hearing began with a series of sharp exchanges between Republicans and Democrats serving on the House Energy and Commerce Committee over the basic matter of how much time members were using to speak and moved on to insinuations of meddling by wealthy, politically connected individuals.
Democrats implied that political contributions and the influence of Koch Industries, with its substantial oil and gas interests, are behind the pro-pipeline push. Republicans suggested that Warren Buffett stands to benefit from the pipeline’s demise because of Berkshire Hathaway’s railroad holdings.
Even the list of witnesses came under fire from both sides. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Koch Industries should be brought in to testify on the pipeline.
Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., said he was “disturbed” that the State Department prevented Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality Director Mike Linder from testifying. Linder was originally scheduled to testify, but Terry said the State Department objected to having a state-level official sitting alongside Assistant Secretary of State Kerri-Ann Jones.
“The head of our Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality is not worthy enough to sit there,” Terry said with heavy sarcasm.
The goal of the hearing was to examine the administration’s recent decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
At the State Department’s recommendation, President Barack Obama rejected the permit last week, saying there was not enough time to determine and review the new Nebraska route before a Feb. 21 deadline that congressional Republicans imposed.
Terry said that doesn’t make sense because the Feb. 21 deadline exempted the Nebraska modifications.
The final route through Nebraska has not been determined.
Wednesday’s hearing also examined Terry’s legislation that would shift authority over the pipeline to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and require the agency to approve the project within 30 days.
Terry’s bill would exempt from that deadline the search for a detour around Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sand Hills.
Still, Jones testified that Terry’s bill “imposes narrow time constraints and creates automatic mandates that prevent an informed decision.”
She also testified that the bill would raise “serious questions about existing legal authorities” and “override foreign policy and national security considerations implicated by a cross-border permit.”
Jeff Wright, director of FERC’s office of energy projects, testified that he has no position on the legislation but raised concerns about how it is written. For example, he said, the deadline for approval of the pipeline would not provide the agency with enough time.
“The 30-day deadline would not permit construction of an adequate record or allow for meaningful public comment,” he said.
Terry and other Republicans have said that all the information needed to make a decision is available after more than three years of reviews as part of the State Department’s process. Eight thick binders were piled up on the desk in front of Terry, a record he called “voluminous.”
Terry started his allotted time at the hearing by saying he had a lot of questions, but he didn’t actually ask them of any of the witnesses.
He entered various documents into the record, including several statements last year by the administration that it would make a pipeline decision by the end of 2011.
“The point here is that we’re using the State of Nebraska as an excuse to delay the decision until after the election,” he said.
Terry’s statements went on long enough that the chairman’s gavel fell before he posed any questions to the witnesses.
“Darn,” Terry said at the sound of the gavel.
Much of the hearing involved longstanding arguments over the relative merits and risks of the project.
Anti-pipeline protesters attended the hearing wearing referee uniforms and held up red flags as metaphorical penalty markers when committee members talked about the pipeline’s benefits to energy security or job creation.
Environmental groups staged a demonstration Tuesday on Capitol Hill, again wearing referee outfits and “blowing the whistle” on what they characterized as the oil and gas industry’s undue influence over Congress.
Pipeline opponents say the jobs created by the pipeline are being significantly overstated. They also say that the project will increase greenhouse gas emissions and that the oil won’t help energy security because it will ultimately land on the export market.
Left unresolved by the hearing was what the State Department plans to do about the memorandum of understanding it had been working on with the State of Nebraska to lay out the process for reviewing an alternative route.
Jones declined a request for comment as she left the hearing.
Terry told The World-Herald that Gov. Dave Heineman’s office has been asking him for guidance on what the state should do in the absence of any direction from the State Department.
“Everything’s a go in Nebraska, and now they don’t have any direction of whether they should even complete this or not,” Terry said.
Terry said his FERC bill could be included in an upcoming highway bill.
Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council attended Wednesday’s hearing and took issue with that approach.
“It’s ridiculous to hold an important highway bill hostage for a single pipeline project,” she said.
The hearing came a day after Obama’s State of the Union speech, which Nebraska State Sen. Chris Langemeier attended as a guest of House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Boehner praised Langemeier for his work on the pipeline issue.
“Senator Langemeier is a strong supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline and was the author of compromise legislation that paved the way for a new pipeline route in the state,” according to a statement from Boehner’s office.
Langemeier watched the speech from the House gallery along with other guests of Boehner. The speaker described his guests as “local leaders and job creators hurt by the president’s decision to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.”
Contact the writer:
202-630-4823, joe.morton@owh.com
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