diff --git a/indra/tools/reading/submit_reading_pipeline.py b/indra/tools/reading/submit_reading_pipeline.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/indra/tools/reading/submit_reading_pipeline.py
+++ b/indra/tools/reading/submit_reading_pipeline.py
@@ -304,9 +304,9 @@ def get_environment():
     # Get the Elsevier keys from the Elsevier client
     environment_vars = [
         {'name': ec.api_key_env_name,
-         'value': ec.elsevier_keys.get('X-ELS-APIKey')},
+         'value': ec.elsevier_keys.get('X-ELS-APIKey', '')},
         {'name': ec.inst_key_env_name,
-         'value': ec.elsevier_keys.get('X-ELS-Insttoken')},
+         'value': ec.elsevier_keys.get('X-ELS-Insttoken', '')},
         {'name': 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID',
          'value': access_key},
         {'name': 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY',
Fix small bug in environment variables passed to batch.