MPR Buys Into Enbridge Line 3 Spin that Climate Change is Just Too Confusing

Tar sands mining in Alberta contributes to climate change. (Wikimedia Commons)

MPR’s latest story on the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands crude oil pipeline buys into the corporate narrative that climate change is just too confusing for people to understand. It starts with the headline: Why no one agrees on Line 3 pipeline’s climate change impact, which undermines the science in the project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

The EIS estimates Line 3’s “social cost of carbon” pollution at $287 billion over 30 years.  The social cost of carbon “is meant to be a comprehensive estimate of climate change damages. It includes changes in net agricultural productivity; human health; property damages from increased flood risk; and changes in energy system costs, such as reduced costs for heating and increased costs for air conditioning.”

I’m not saying that people can’t challenge the analysis, but let’s be clear about what is in the EIS. It’s $287 billion estimate is conservative, a likely underestimate of the costs. The social cost of carbon estimate “does not include all important damages,” because of limitations with the modeling and data. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says such “social costs of carbon” estimates are “a useful measure to assess the benefits of CO2 reductions,” it says.

The MPR story never mentions the $287 billion cost.

Corporate efforts to muddy the facts are nothing new. Recall how tobacco companies tried to undermine the science linking smoking and lung cancer. Pipeline companies don’t need to convince people that tar sands crude oil doesn’t affect climate, they just need to raise doubts, making it so hard to understand that people walk away scratching their heads.

MPR’s story reflects that narrative. Here’s the opening paragraph:

Calculating the carbon footprint of a project like Enbridge Energy’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline is complicated. Not only are there multiple steps involved in the analysis, but there’s also a need to make an educated guess about what the world would look like with and without the new pipeline.

Comment: So the story’s takeaway is not the $287 billion public pricetag, but that the analysis is “complicated,” there are “multiple steps” that include “educated guesses.” The MPR analysis does more to confuse than illuminate.

Commerce Takes Enbridge Assumption as Fact, Low Balls Impact of New Tar Sands Pipeline

First in a series of critiques of the Minnesota Department of Commerce’s final environmental impact statement (EIS) on Enbridge Line 3, a proposal to expand and reroute a tar sands crude oil pipeline through northern Minnesota. This project threatens the Mississippi River, wild rice areas, and Anishinaabe treaty rights. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is taking public comments on the adequacy of the EIS until 4:30 p.m. Oct. 2. To learn how to submit comments, click here.

Today, let’s critique the debate over the useful lifespan of a new crude oil pipeline. The EIS assumed the new Line 3 would only last 30 years. Anyway, Enbridge told the Department of Commerce it would operate for 30 years and Commerce did not challenge the assumption, even though current pipelines have lasted much longer.

Commerce had the lead role in writing the EIS on Enbridge Line 3 and its goal was to be a neutral arbiter of the facts. As it states in Appendix T (page T-i): “an EIS does not advocate, recommend, or state a preference for a specific alternative. Instead, it analyzes and compares alternatives so that citizens, agencies, and governments can work from a common set of facts.”

This is one example where Commerce — by accepting Enbridge’s assumption and ignoring public criticism — is showing bias favoring the pipeline. This is one reason the final EIS is inadequate and needs to be redone.