ALERT: President Biden's Carbon Footprint: Growing Again?

Last week we spoke about President Biden's growing carbon footprint, made larger by killing Keystone XL and thereby causing the release of 1.5 million more tons of CO2 annually by locomotives hauling 400,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil that otherwise would have been carried carbon-free by the new pipeline. Those carbon emissions are the equivalent of putting a half-million gasoline-powered cars on the road.



This week the President will make a decision that could make matters even worse if called the wrong way. His Army Corps of Engineers must decide by Wednesday, February 10 whether it will order the shut-down of the Dakota Access Pipeline. A Federal Court of Appeals recently ruled that DAPL was operating without a valid easement through Federal land - allegedly because the Corp, under Trump, did not make an adequate assessment of its environmental impact.



The question is whether to permit Bakken crude oil to continue to flow through the pipe while the Corps tries to cure the problem with its environmental assessment, if indeed it chooses to. There's little doubt that however the Corps rules, it will have been dictated from the White House.



If Dakota Access is shut down, yet another 500,000 barrels per day will be dumped onto a rail system already straining to carry what would have been Keystone XL's oil to Texas. By diverting another half-million barrels per day to the surface, this time traveling 1,100 miles from Williston ND to Patoka IL, he will be causing locomotives to emit another 750,000 tons of CO2 per year by burning 68 million gallons of diesel fuel. So that adds as much carbon emissions as would another 245,000 cars on the road on top of the 490,000 added by Keystone XL's cancellation - the real-world equivalent of adding almost three quarters of a million more gas-burning automobiles on the road.



 Two other things happen when oil travels on the rails instead of by pipeline. First, finite rail capacity, also needed for other types of freight, gets stretched to the limit, crowding out and thus raising the cost of all rail space. That's particularly hurtful to farmers now paying more to move grain from midwestern farms to market. Farmers have had a few very lean years recently, and this will add to their woes.



Second, since it costs about three times as much to ship oil by rail than by pipeline, consumers' energy costs will rise even further. This will go hand-in-hand with higher costs for everyday products made from petroleum, plus higher transportation costs that are passed along in the price of all consumer goods transported by diesel-burning truck.



What the Administration either doesn't understand or chooses to ignore, is that demand, not supply or pipeline capacity, determines how much oil is produced and shipped. Killing pipelines does nothing to reduce demand - it only raises transportation costs which then get passed along to consumers. So crude oil will continue to make its way to market, pipelines or no pipelines. Consumers, farmers and the environment will pay the price for Administration decisions that will be applauded by many of its supporters, but are bad for America.



Toby Mack, President EEIA