Senators: Pipeline health impacts unclear

WASHINGTON – Saying the health impact of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline hasn’t been properly explored, two Democratic senators on Wednesday called on the Obama administration to conduct a comprehensive study on the human health impacts of tar sands and the proposed pipeline.

Calling a recent State Department study of the proposed pipeline’s environmental impact “woefully inadequate,” California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, pointed to what she said were health problems that surrounded the extraction of crude from oil sands.

The Keystone project would bring crude from the Canadian oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast. Much of the debate on the project has dealt with the broad environmental impact and on its release of planet-warming gases compared with those released by conventional sources of oil.

Boxer’s letter was co-signed by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

McClatchy-Tribune