Fox Business personalities seized on reports of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to push for approval of Keystone XL, ignoring the fact that the pipeline could lead to increased risk of spills near the Gulf Coast.

On March 23, Reuters reported that cleanup crews had quarantined a portion of the heavily trafficked Houston Ship Channel in response to a significant oil spill. The spill, estimated to be roughly 4,000 barrels (or 168,000 gallons), began after a tanker vessel carrying heavy fuel oil collided with a cargo ship in Galveston Bay, an estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico.

On the March 24 edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co., guest host Charles Payne and contributor Tracy Byrnes discussed the impact that the oil spill would have as “an impediment to growing out our fossil fuel industry” by providing ammunition for environmentalists. Byrnes then pivoted, claiming that the Galveston Bay oil spill was an example of why the Keystone XL oil pipeline project should be approved.

PAYNE: Anytime we hear these kind of things, it feels like another impediment to growing out our fossil fuel industry, another thing for environmentalists to rally around, although we know accidents are bound to happen.

BYRNES: You and Sandra [Smith] said it last hour, just do the Keystone Pipeline already, create all these jobs. Enough of the nonsense, these are all distractions, that's all they are.

Neither personality addressed the fact that the Keystone XL pipeline is specifically designed to transport heavy crude to refineries and export-bound oil tankers on the Gulf Coast, precisely the scenario that could lead to more spills like the one unfolding in Galveston Bay. The problem of increased water traffic is not unknown for oil sands pipelines. In December 2013, the Associated Press reported that a planned pipeline transporting Alberta oil sands to Vancouver, British Columbia would increase local tanker traffic “nearly sevenfold.”

Furthermore, Payne and Byrnes' argument in favor of building the pipeline relied on debunked claims of job creation stemming from the Keystone XL project.

Fox News has shown before that it will use any and all opportunities to promote its fossil fuel agenda and the Keystone XL proposal. The network's latest advocacy for fossil fuels comes on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the most environmentally devastating oil tanker spill in American history.