Keystone XL pipeline backers got a lift Friday, with the US State Department concluding that the project would not significantly adversely affect the environment, or impact development of Canada’s oil sands, largely echoing the conclusions it found in a draft review last March. The agency’s long-awaited final supplemental environmental impact statement said that no one project would influence the pace of Canadian oil sands production, given that other pipelines and crude-by-rail infrastructure are being prepared to transport the heavy crude to ready markets. Therefore, TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline would not, by itself, seriously exacerbate climate change, the report stated. “Approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project, including the [Keystone XL] is unlikely to significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands or the continued demand for heavy crude oil at refineries in the United States based on expected oil […]