State Department: Keystone pipeline won’t hurt the environment

TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline will not harm the environment, the State Department — in a blow to environmentalists who want to block the project — wrote in a newly-drafted report on the latest proposed route.

“[T]he draft Supplemental EIS concludes that approval or denial of the proposed Project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands, or on the amount of heavy crude oil refined in the Gulf Coast area,” the State Department draft report says, as Think Progress noted.