After some digging (with the help of #heat), I also realized that the heat-client handles URLs differently for environment and template files. #heat mentioned that template_url is the "unfavored" way of sending template data. It was recommend that we do 2 things:
1) Fix the environment data in validation for now, and remove the environment URL option
2) In a later patch, add back the environment URL and change it + template URL to download the file client side and send that as template data, instead of sending the URLs directly
After some digging (with the help of #heat), I also realized that the heat-client handles URLs differently for environment and template files. #heat mentioned that template_url is the "unfavored" way of sending template data. It was recommend that we do 2 things:
1) Fix the environment data in validation for now, and remove the environment URL option
2) In a later patch, add back the environment URL and change it + template URL to download the file client side and send that as template data, instead of sending the URLs directly