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Over half a million anti-Valentines to the Keystone XL pipeline: The American public has no love for tar sands

2012-02-14T17:09:14Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

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Americans from all walks of life who want to fight climate change and build a clean energy future have sent a clear message: the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest. Working with a large coalition of partners, our goal was to send a half million messages opposing the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to the Senate in just 24 hours. The messages opposed a Senate effort to overrule the President’s denial of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. An unprecedented coming together of people from across the country eclipsed that goal before the challenge was half over. Over the last 24 hours the air was filled with tweets, facebook posts, blogs, and emails asking people to make their opinion known and how they responded! With counts still coming in, we are already at almost 800,000 messages sent. It's time for lawmakers to start heeding people across the country who are saying no to this Big Oil project and other dirty energy projects. Lawmakers and the oil industry should consider this an anti-Valentine message for tar sands. We don’t love it and we don’t need it. Americans know that we can do better for our climate, water and farmlands than expansion of destructive and expensive Canadian tar sands.

Once again, we see how much people value their clean air and water. We see that people are worried about what a changing climate in the form of violent storms, floods and droughts means for their homes and pocketbooks today and for their children tomorrow. We see that Americans know that we have the ability to do better than going after ever dirtier and more expensive forms of fuel such as high carbon tar sands that are strip-mined and drilled from under Canada’s Boreal forests and wetlands. And we see that Americans know that we should not bear the risk of a tar sands pipeline that is more likely to leak and more difficult to clean up than regular oil. Once the public learns about the risks of tar sands – they say no to that energy source and its pipeline. Americans are enthusiastic about clean energy and using American innovation and ingenuity to get there. There is no love for dirty energy solutions such as tar sands.

In their latest shenanigan, a number of Republicans in the Senate have proposed an amendment to the transportation bill to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Congress approving a single pipeline project? What happened to our normal environmental review and permitting process, you might ask. The sad tale of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is that the review process was underway and expected to be completed in early 2013. Many Republicans in Congress didn’t want to wait and so they attached a requirement to make a decision on the tar sands pipeline to the end of year payroll tax relief legislation. With only 60 days to make a decision, President Obama denied the permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in January. That should have been the end of the story. But a number of Republicans in Congress are now coming back and trying to have Congress itself approve this project that is already dead. A pipeline approval provision passed in the Republican House and just this week a number of Republican Senators have introduced an approval provision to the completely unrelated transportation bill.

The transportation bill should not be weighed down by controversial and unrelated provisions such as an attempt to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. And this assault on fair process and on health and environmental safeguards has sparked an outcry from across America. I have been so inspired to see the outpouring of enthusiasm from all walks of life in just the last 24 hours, saying yes to clean energy and no to dirty tar sands. And I hope that our Senators listen – the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not where the love is.

See Bill McKibben on the Colbert Report about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and the effort to get a half million messages to the Senate in 24 hours: http://www.treehugger.com/fossil-fuels/bill-mckibben-talks-keystone-xl-colbert-report-video.html

24 Hour Challenge: Stopping the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline: www.StopTar.org

2012-02-13T16:58:46Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Photo credit: Peter Essick, National Geographic

The fight against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has reached another crucial turning point. Big Oil has teamed up with Republicans in Congress to push a provision that would allow the Senate to resurrect the project. This despite the fact that President Obama rejected this dirty energy project in January.

The environmental movement is joining in an all out, 24 hour push to keep Congress from approving the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. From noon eastern on Monday to noon on Tuesday, we are aiming for 500,000 messages to show the clear public support for President Obama’s decision to deny the permit for this dirty energy project.

The reason for this urgency is that we think there will be an attempt to put a provision to approve Keystone XL in the Senate transportation bill. And this can happen at any moment. So we are showing that there is widespread public support for the President’s rejection of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The American public does not want to see Congress approving a dirty energy project.

The facts for why the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is such a bad idea bear repeating. Tar sands strip-mining and drilling is destroying Canada’s great Boreal forest and spewing climate changing greenhouse gases. Tar sands pipelines are not like regular oil pipelines. They are more likely to leak and once tar sands spills it is more difficult to clean up. And who benefits while we are put at risk? The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will make climate change worse and threaten America’s heartland with oil spills all so that oil companies can get a higher price for their product by exporting it overseas.

The irony is that we do not need this tar sands pipeline. The United States already has more pipeline capacity than there is tar sands oil for decades to come. Make no mistake, this is not a project meant to benefit America. This is a project so that oil companies can divert tar sands from the Midwest and have the ability to get a higher price for tar sands oil by reaching overseas markets. The pipeline company TransCanada has said this itself.

Stopping Keystone XL will make a real difference for our climate. It is false to argue that tar sands will be expanded even without the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Tar sands does not have a path to Asia and is unlikely to get one. But we are inundated with misleading arguments as Big Oil throws itself into securing a pipeline to make its already enormous profits even bigger.

We’re going all out in the next 24 hours to stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and are asking you to take action. Don’t forget to tell all your friends and ask them to take action as well.

Take action at: www.StopTar.org.

Red Flags! Keystone XL tar sands pipeline bill would force approval while neglecting to protect our rivers and farms

2012-01-25T20:51:27Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Yesterday, hundreds of “referees” gathered on Capitol Hill and blew the whistle on the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Those referees were back in action this morning at the House energy subcommittee hearing on a proposal by Representative Terry to approve the already rejected Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Red flags were waved as some members mischaracterized Keystone XL as a necessary project. And hands raised in goal signs as some members made the very valid point that a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline should not be rushed. Many members noted that Congress had not given the State Department enough time to reach a thorough decision on Keystone XL, especially as we do not even know the path that the pipeline would take through Nebraska. This is true and whether Congress tries to hide behind the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in mandating approval of Keystone XL or just does the job directly, energy projects need a thorough review with the opportunity for public input. Americans don’t want to see Congress in the business of issuing permits for what Representative Waxman called a “pet project” that would be rushed to approval and exempted from environmental laws to benefit the oil industry.

In his testimony, Jeffrey Wright, the FERC Director of the Office of Energy Projects which oversees interstate natural gas pipelines made it clear that this was a bill that did not give FERC any ability to get public comments, do an assessment or have any oversight.

Even more outrageous than Congress taking on permitting of a complex pipeline project, is allowing a foreign company to build a pipeline that would be exempt from the U.S. environmental laws that our domestic pipelines need to follow. The Terry bill is a pretty messy piece of legislation, but it seems to do just that. The Terry bill says that the permit will be the only legal authority aside from a few Department of Transportation and FERC requirements. Where does this leave us on the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act, and the rules on cultural preservation, rivers and wetlands?

These water laws are critical for protecting our health and safety from tar sands pipelines. I often hear people say that this is just another oil pipeline. But that is not the case. Keystone XL would carry raw tar sands – bitumen that has been diluted to make it liquid enough to flow through a pipe at high pressure.

We don’t have a lot of experience with this type of pipeline in the United States and what experience we do have has not been good. TransCanada’s first Keystone pipeline was supposed to have state of the art safety standards in place and only have 1.4 spills a decade. In its first year of operation, it leaked 14 times and at one point had to be shut-down as a threat to public safety – making it the newest pipeline to be subjected to such an action by federal regulators. And TransCanada may be cutting safety corners. A safety inspector on that pipeline said that he witnessed many bad practices from a safety perspective while working on the first Keystone tar sands pipeline. We also know that tar sands is harder to clean up. The spill of almost 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan is still being cleaned up one and a half years later.

The last thing we want is for Keystone XL to spill and have it be the taxpayers, farmers and all those who use the water from the river or aquifer to bear the burden instead of TransCanada.

Bottomline? Congress is not a permitting agency and should not be in the business of approving projects – especially not projects that are meant to benefit Big Oil and not the American people.

For some color on yesterday’s referee action and an explanation of why the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will have Americans bear the risks of oil spills and climate change so that the oil industry can get a higher price for tar sands on the world market, watch this short video blog:

Thanks to Rocky Kistner for video production.

State of the Union: Nebraska landowner response accuses Republicans of playing political football with the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

2012-01-25T04:10:08Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

In giving the official Republican response to tonight’s State of the Union address, Indiana Governor Daniels pushed a tar sands pipeline that would put our health and safety at risk to benefit the oil industry. Echoing the wildly exaggerated jobs numbers, Governor Daniels missed the point that TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not a national jobs plan, but a project whose few hundred permanent jobs need to be weighed against the risks from oil spills and climate change. President Obama was right to reject Keystone XL as not in the national interest just last week.

Keystone XL would bring tar sands oil from where it is strip-mined and drilled from under Canada’s Boreal forest to the Gulf Coast where much of it would be turned into diesel and exported. Keystone XL would put American farmlands at risk from oil spills so that the oil industry can get a better price for its product in the international market. And with a tar sands pipeline it is not a question of if but when a spill will happen. TransCanada’s first Keystone tar sands pipeline has already leaked 14 times in its first year of operation and it was also supposed to have state of the art safety standards in place.

Responding to Governor Daniels, Nebraska landowner Randy Thompson said:

"As a registered Republican for over forty years I am appalled at the course of action that my party has chosen to take in regards to the Keystone XL pipeline. The politicians may find the Keystone XL to be some kind of a political game, a political football of sorts, to be casually punted about, but for those of us who live and work along its proposed pathway, it is anything but a game. It is instead viewed as a threat to our way of life that has in many instances taken several generations of work to achieve."

Randy is right when he calls the boosting of a dirty energy project like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline a cynical game. Despite what Governor Daniels says, nothing about the Keystone XL pipeline is good for us. Tar sands is expensive oil and as a new analysis from Texas shows, even more expensive when sent almost 2,000 miles by pipeline to refineries on the other side of the country.

Tar sands extraction with its high use of energy and our continued dependence on oil also are making climate change worse. This is serious business in a year when we have seen the high cost of droughts, floods, fires and violent storms linked to climate change.

Despite all this, GOP Congressional leadership met with TransCanada to discuss a plan for trying to revive the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. And Congressional Republicans are proposing a bill that mandates approval and exempts the pipeline from many of our health and safety protections, even while pretending to give authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. You can read more about that bill here. And as the President said, we need to keep the next payroll tax credit bill clean – and that means clean of tar sands and any other environmentally harmful riders.

We need to move on from the Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands expansion. The President said, “We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising.” The oil industry is stifling homegrown U.S. energy, not those who would protect our farmlands, waters and climate, as Governor Daniels implied. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is one more way in which the oil industry is pushing to increase its profits with the American people carrying the risks. We can do better with energy that doesn’t put our farms, water and climate at risk.

Expensive, dangerous and risky - what do Congressional Republicans gain from supporting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline?

2012-01-24T16:24:40Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

After the State of the Union address tonight, we can expect Governor Daniels’ GOP response to sing the praises of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline which would put Americans at risk to benefit multinational oil companies. Keystone XL was rejected by the President last week as not in the national interest. This is a project through America, not to America. It is a project that would put our farms, waters, and climate at risk so that the oil industry could get a better price for tar sands in overseas markets. The President showed leadership in rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline – we have cleaner energy options than tar sands.

We don’t have to look far to see what is driving the GOP lawmakers in their praise of this dirty energy project. Jack Gerrard the head of the American Petroleum Institute, which counts the major tar sands oil players among its members, threatened serious political consequences if Keystone XL was not approved. And, instead of standing up for American health and safety and for American workers, the GOP Congressional staff met with the Canadian pipeline company TransCanada, planning ways to force approval of this project even to the extent of once again attaching it to a bill to extend the payroll tax credit.

Farmers, scientists, business-leaders, religious leaders, workers, mayors and many others know the truth about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Congressional Republicans might tell us that Keystone XL will create tens or even hundreds of thousands of jobs. These wildly inflated numbers do a disservice to American workers who deserve a jobs plan that doesn’t put the health and safety of our children at risk. The GOP might tell us that Keystone XL is necessary for our security. But we know better when we see that the oil industry wants this pipeline to get higher prices for tar sands by having access to overseas markets from the Gulf Coast. And against expectations, Keystone XL would actually raise oil prices in the Midwest by diverting oil from that region to the Gulf for export. This is a simple calculation of supply and demand and another reason why the oil industry wants this pipeline so badly. TransCanada has admitted to Canadian regulators that Keystone XL will increase the price that the U.S. pays for Canadian oil by up to $4 billion.

Expensive, dangerous, and risky – what do GOP members of Congress have to gain from supporting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline? Certainly, farmers, landowners and people all across the United States already suffering the high cost of floods, storms and fires caused by climate change have much to lose and nothing to gain from this dirty energy project. What we need are more ways to decrease our dependence on oil. It is through clean energy that we will create jobs, increase our security and protect the health and safety of our children.

Listening to General Anderson: Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would set back clean energy by 20 years

2012-01-21T15:16:24Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Brigadier General (Retired) Steven Anderson is a crusader against dependence on oil and in our fight against climate change. He has been speaking out against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would bring tar sands oil across America’s heartland to the Gulf Coast for an oil industry plan to get higher prices on the export market.

As the General has said: “My experiences in Iraq convinced me that the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and that Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late.”

The oil industry argues that Keystone XL is in America’s national interest. But who do you trust to know our security interests better – multinational oil companies or a General who fought on the ground in Iraq?

Watch this short video where the General says:

The stakes are American security, American lives, American blood and billions of dollars. We are actually supporting Big Oil through this pipeline and we’re ignoring the implications that it will have on our national security. It makes us more vulnerable in the future. It will continue to keep us addicted to oil.

This addiction leads to global instability and climate change.

Bottom line is that we need to make tough choices now about changing the way we handle energy, manage energy and get our energy in this nation. We need to develop renewable energy now. The Keystone XL pipeline would set back a timeline for clean energy by twenty years.

Read NRDC and Oil Change International’s new report on energy security and Keystone XL here.

Mayors applaud Keystone XL tar sands pipeline rejection

2012-01-20T19:43:11Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Local communities are on the frontlines when it comes to the impacts of climate change and for the past few years we have seen mayors speaking out on the need to move off of high carbon fuels such as tar sands which undermine the efforts that local communities are making to reduce our dependence on oil. Recently over 100 mayors spoke out against the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and today the leaders of the efforts of mayors against Keystone XL and tar sands expansion issued the following statement applauding the decision to reject the pipeline project.

January 20, 2012

Mayors Supporting a Clean Energy Future React to the President’s Decision on Keystone XL

Statement of Mayors Frank Cownie (Des Moines IA), John Dickert (Racine WI), Jennifer Hosterman (Pleasanton CA) and Kitty Piercy (Eugene OR), leaders of mayoral effort against high carbon fuels

As mayors highly involved in the push to help move America toward a clean energy future, we commend and support in the strongest terms President Obama’s decision to deny the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. We view this landmark decision as an important step in protecting the health and safety of Americans – and the environment which sustains us all. Moving toward clean energy sources, and away from high carbon fuels like tar sands oil, is a no-brainer of the highest order, especially given the strong contribution that the clean energy sector is already making in the U.S. economy. High carbon fuels dirty our air, pose grave threats to fresh water, and ratchet up carbon emissions at a time when we’re all trying – at the local level and beyond – to reduce carbon outputs, improve air quality and slow climate change. We believe the President has shown wisdom and leadership in rejecting the pipeline and thereby demonstrating the Administration’s commitment to clean energy, which reduces our dependence on oil and creates jobs that ultimately benefit everyone.

In November of last year, we reached out to mayors across the country on the Keystone XL pipeline issue, and the interest in finding a better way to meet our transportation energy needs than importing high carbon fuels like tar sands oil was overwhelming. The result was a letter to President Obama from 103 mayors, coast to coast, asking the President to deny the presidential permit for the pipeline in order to protect the health and safety of the American people by protecting our environment, present and future.

As we mayors stated in our letter: “Expansion of high carbon fuels such as tar sands undermine hard work by local communities everywhere to fight climate change, reduce dependence on oil, and create a clean energy future.” Our cities and towns are where the rubber hits the road, when it comes to the many negative impacts – not just on the environment, but on our health and pocketbooks as well – of continuing to rely on oil for our transportation needs. This is why so many of us, in all regions of the country, actively support greener, cleaner ways of getting around, as well as the creation of clean energy and green-collar jobs which put us to work and protect our environment all at the same time.

The Keystone XL pipeline is not being proposed for the benefit of the American people, and this is abundantly clear for several reasons.

First, any honest assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline plans shows that this project proposal is a business strategy designed to benefit first and foremost, of course, the project proponent and its investors by opening access to world markets – via United States ports. That is, much of the tar sands oil to be transported by the Keystone XL pipeline is not for U.S. consumption at all, but rather for export to other countries after it is “upgraded” in the U.S. (because it’s cheaper to upgrade and refine it here, at our ports, where it is closer to lucrative export markets).

Second, even military experts agree that importing tar sands oil won’t make us safer. Keeping the country dependent on oil inevitably leads to involvement in conflicts likely to affect world oil supplies and prices. Canadian tar sands oil is a small a piece of the pie in terms of world oil resources, so it cannot influence world oil prices in any meaningful way, and some high-ranking members of the military have described the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project as “a gift to our enemies” because it would keep us addicted to oil and slow down the development of American-made sources of renewable, cleaner fuels that would make us more energy independent.

Third, the job-creation potential from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project is miniscule and as a Cornell University economic analysis aptly demonstrated, will likely be cancelled out by job losses resulting from higher gas prices if the pipeline is built. Higher prices could happen here when tar sands exports overseas fetch higher prices for Canadian producer. Finally, it is now clear that the jobs created by Keystone XL would be small in number, temporary and in opening in areas lucky enough to have unemployment rates much lower than the national average.

We are heartened by the President’s decision to ensure that before any final decision is made about the Keystone XL pipeline, and the high-carbon, tar sands oil it would carry, the Administration will ensure that a full and thorough assessment of the project’s impacts is carried out. In announcing his decision, the President underscored the importance of such an assessment for protecting “the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment”, and we believe that denying the permit in order to ensure a proper assessment was the only responsible course of action. We believe the brightest future for the health, wealth and security of our citizens stands with clean energy, and we are happy to work with the President to make it a reality.

You can also find the document and contacts for the mayors offices here.

Rejected: Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permit denied despite Big Oil bullying

2012-01-18T20:10:25Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Today, President Obama changed the rules of the game: he stood up to Big Oil’s bullying and rejected the massively destructive Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The pipeline was rejected for all the right reasons. President Obama put the health and safety of our people, our air, lands and water – our national interest—above the interests of Big Oil. This a victory shared by many today – by farmers in Nebraska and all along the pipeline route and by those who have already suffered the harm of climate change in droughts, fires, floods and violent storms.

Rather than bringing America energy security, the tar sands pipeline would have bypassed the Midwest so that tar sands could be exported with tax benefits for the oil companies. Rather than provide a national jobs plan based on clean energy, the pipeline would have put our land, water and climate at risk for a single construction project. And rather than lowering oil prices, the pipeline would have lowered oil supply in the Midwest causing prices there to rise.

Republicans in the House brought this decision to a head. The President was going to take another year for a new route through Nebraska that would not cross the fragile Sandhills to be determined and assessed. But with a provision in the payroll tax holiday extension bill to force a decision by February 21, the Administration had no choice but to reject the permit application. How could a pipeline be approved when the whole route is not even known?

The President stood up to Big Oil – despite threats of “huge consequences.” He listened to millions of Americans who said that we are done with oil schemes that pollute our homes and water and wreak havoc with our climate all so that oil companies can make out like bandits. He showed the kind of leadership that Americans look for and that people around the world respect. By rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the President stood up for our health, our safety, our farms, our homes in protecting us against tar sands oil spills and climate change. That is the kind of leadership that takes us into a clean energy future.

Kenny Bruno Guest Blog: They Gotta Lotta Nerve

2012-01-14T14:50:27Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Guest Blog by Kenny Bruno, Corporate Ethics International.

“A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy,” said British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems determined to prove it.

As the hearings on the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline and tanker project got underway, the Canadian federal government launched a smear campaign against pipeline opponents. Listen to the rhetoric in an open letter from Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver:

"Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity [the Gateway pipeline] to diversify our trade…their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth…[they] threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda." Oliver said opponents will bring "jet-setting celebrities” and use funding from "foreign special interest groups."

In reality, Messrs. Harper and Oliver have no problem with foreign interference, as long as Canada is the one doing the interfering. They have no problem with foreign special interest groups as long as the foreign interests in question align precisely with those of the tar sands industry.

This is the government that has engaged in an international campaign against clean energy, lobbying to weaken legislation from Brussels to Washington, from Sacramento to Boston, always in defense of tar sands companies.

This is the government that has no problem with billions in foreign money going to the tar sands industry. Minister Oliver again: "There is not enough capital in this country to finance [tar sands development], so we welcome capital from other countries.” Modest grants to help raise legitimate concerns by Canadian citizens about a mega-project are not similarly welcome.

This is the government that says tar sands oil is “ethical” simply by virtue of its origins within Canadian borders, but has no qualms about exporting that same oil to dictatorships.

This is the government that has voiced no objection to the unethical behavior of TransCanada Pipelines, LTD in its attempt build the Keystone XL through the United States.

In one respect Minister Oliver is consistent: he does not hide the fact that the Government has already decided that the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker proposal is a great project before a single hearing has been held to hear the views of Canadian citizens. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was “inclined” to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, her State Dept quickly pressed the reset button and at least tried to reclaim impartiality.

The good news is that this anti-democratic impulse to throttle the airing of legitimate concerns about Enbridge’s Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline and tanker project won’t work. Canadian environmental groups have stood up for their right to accept donations from abroad. They will continue to engage in alliances with US and European citizen groups dedicated to stopping the reckless expansion of the tar sands and to protecting our planet from the ever faster growing threats of climate change.

The truth about Keystone XL and the economy - who really wins? (Hint: it's not the American people)

2012-01-12T15:02:07Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

The facts show that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will not help the American economy. Yet, in this morning’s State of American Business speech at the US Chamber of Commerce, once again the Keystone XL pipeline project was put forward as some type of economic savior. Are you kidding me? Keystone XL is a plan for oil companies to bypass the Midwest so that they can get higher prices for their oil by exporting it from the Gulf Coast. This afternoon we can expect to hear more of the same from a Business Roundtable discussion with John Engler. What the claims about Keystone XL don’t tell us is oil companies are in the driver’s seat when it comes to Canadian tar sands oil and we should never mistake their interests for the interests of the American public or economy.

Tom Donohue, the Chamber President, is just the latest to try to claim that Keystone XL would create 20,000 jobs the day it is approved. This flies in the face of the State Department analysis that there would be 5,000-6,000 temporary construction workers and only 20 permanent employees. Even the pipeline company TransCanada only estimates a few hundred permanent jobs. More incredibly, Donohue said that the Keystone XL pipeline would create 250,000 jobs over the course of the project. The Washington Post recently gave two “Pinocchios” to exaggerated Keystone XL jobs claims and the claims of 250,000 jobs have been shown to be wrong. I’d say that at this point the 250,000 number is worth ten Pinocchios.

Donohue also said that the Keystone XL project had “passed every environmental test” and that there is “no legitimate reason to delay.” There are farmers and landowners in Nebraska, Montana and Texas who beg to differ. This pipeline is no small thing: it would be nearly 2,000 miles long, plow through six states and be filled to bursting with as much as 900,000 barrels of unrefined, tar sands oil each and every day. At this point, we don’t even know the path that the pipeline would take through Nebraska. Far from passing every environmental test – a critical part of the environmental review hasn’t even started yet. Oil companies and their allies say there is no reason to delay on Keystone XL because they’re afraid of the facts. Americans deserve a real examination of the serious issues posed by Keystone XL.

What this all comes down to is a startling willingness to take risks with our health and our children’s future in order to help the oil industry rather than the American people. In this case, we are being asked to take the risks of oil spills and climate change. More risks for fewer jobs. That doesn’t sound like a sound way forward for the American economy to me. And many in labor and business agree – as long as they are not in the oil industry.

We need to move rapidly to cleaner, not dirtier energy. And we need to deliver it in safer, not more dangerous ways. Keystone XL undermines clean energy, puts our farms and waters in danger, and fast-tracks climate change. Donohue was right when he said that energy is a game changer. Dirty energy can put us all at risk – a game-changing move that is bad for our economy and our health. Clean energy moves us forward towards a healthier economy and a better future for ourselves and our children. Clean energy is how the American people really come out on top.

Multinational oil companies are hijacking Canadian energy decisions

2012-01-09T16:19:06Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Rather than preparing to listen respectfully to community members in British Columbia, the Canadian federal government is acting as a spokesperson for Big Oil accusing opponents of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline of being “radicals” and “foreigners.” When it comes to tar sands pipelines, multinational oil companies are hijacking a Canadian process with a recent series of accusations from tar sands interests trying to minimize the very valid Canadian public concerns. The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline would bring tar sands oil west from Alberta across British Columbia for export to Asia and California. It will drive tar sands expansion, accelerate global warming, and put globally important rivers and coastal ecosystems under threat. This pipeline proposal has long been of concern to the people of British Columbia. First Nations’ opposition has been so strong over the years that the project proposal even went on hold at one point. Tomorrow, the Joint Review Panel public meetings on the pipeline proposal start in Kitamaat Village on the B.C. coast where the pipeline would end and the oil tanker traffic begin. The Canadian people – and especially those of British Columbia who will bear the highest costs of this pipeline – need to lead decision-making about this project. NRDC is proud to have been invited to partner with Canadians in a campaign to oppose the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline.

Gerald Amos, former chief of the Haisla Nation and resident of Kitamaat Village, writes about the recent flare in tar sands oil interest rhetoric: “This desperate attempt to change the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of people who oppose this project, is driven by more than concern for our home and native land. It is being driven by greed and desperation. The foreign interest groups Canadians should really be concerned about are the Chinese oil companies investing billions in the tar sands, and the multinational oil companies like Shell and British Petroleum, who are investing 200 million dollars trying to sell Canadians on this astoundingly stupid idea.”

Early last year, Enbridge trumpeted that Sinopec (a state-owned oil Chinese oil company) had provided them with $10-million to help push Northern Gateway through the regulatory process and to conduct public relations (this was part of a part of a bigger $100-million pot). Enbridge admits that millions more have come to the oil pipeline giant from other undisclosed foreign oil companies. But Enbridge refuses to say who. Just last week, after years of pressure, Enbridge finally revealed a handful of their formerly secret backers – including another $10-million from a subsidiary of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, as well as some Canadian companies.

So in response to Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver who published the latest in a series of attempts to undermine opposition to the Northern Gateway project: I say that care for our planet and our health makes sense and is not "radical." Wanting to fight climate change in the face of the violent storms, floods, droughts, and fires that we have experienced in just the last year in North America makes sense and is not “radical.” And wanting to preserve our homes, rivers, communities and coasts is something that people across Canada and the United States agree on.

Yet, multinational oil companies are making tar sands decisions about what brings them the most profit – and the Canadian federal government seems to want the oil industry to continue making those decisions instead of the Canadian public. Multinational oil companies are hijacking Canadian’s ability to decide their energy future. The Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline hearings are an opportunity for Canadians - especially the people of British Columbia and First Nations - to make known their concerns with this tar sands pipeline. And the fact that thousands of Canadians have registered to speak shows how deep the concerns about this pipeline project run. NRDC is proud to be partnering with Canadian environmental groups and First Nations to fight a pipeline that will worsen climate change, bring tar sands oil to California refineries, and bring oil spills to Canada's wild rivers, estuaries and coastal rainforests.

Iran's oil bluff shows energy security is found in freedom from oil, not in Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

2011-12-29T14:44:04Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

The current threat from Iran to block oil movements through the Strait of Hormuz has some Republicans calling for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast refineries. Energy security is important and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not the way to get there. Our economic and national security lies in clean energy, not in deepening our dependence on ever more expensive, dirtier and riskier forms of oil such as tar sands. Dependence on oil (from anywhere) is what makes us vulnerable to price spikes or supply disruptions. So the more fuel-efficient we get, the less we are beholden to foreign sources of oil - whether Iranian or Canadian. This is one of many reasons why the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest.

Tar sands oil interests claim that Canadian tar sands are the only way for America to avoid the messy international politics of Middle Eastern oil. But Iran's current bluff underscores the point that many in the defense and intelligence communities are also making: we have to work harder to break our dependence on oil. All oil. The bluster of Canadian tar sands doesn’t change the dynamics of the world oil market. Here is why.

The threat of a oil crisis if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz is immediate and will not be alleviated by Canadian tar sands oil. Tar sands does not have spare production capacity. Tar sands bitumen is strip mined or melted from deep under the Boreal forest. You cannot turn the tap on high and have more come out. Unlike with conventional oil, it takes a long time to bring new tar sands production online. In fact, America already has more pipeline capacity than tar sands oil to fill it and that is likely to be the case for another 15 years or more. Tar sands doesn’t help in times of oil shortage due to conflict or natural disaster because it carries no spare capacity.

In fact, the primary purpose of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is to bring Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast where Valero and other refineries have said that much of it will be turned into diesel and exported. This is not a path to energy security for America.

But even if Keystone XL’s tar sands oil were to stay in the United States, this would only deepen and prolong U.S. dependence on oil. Dependence on oil (from anywhere) is what makes America vulnerable.

The bottom line is that even if we get more oil from Canada, we are still at the mercy of price spikes when some other part of the world oil market blows up. True energy security lies in kicking our addiction to oil and moving ahead more quickly with clean energy that does not tie us to a dependence on the Middle East and other conflict areas.

Killing the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline: the gift of hope for a clean energy future

2011-12-23T13:30:03Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Updated as of December 26

On December 23, the House passed a "tax holiday" extension package that contains an unrelated provision to speed up a decision on the dirty energy Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. How does this help fight climate change? By requiring a decision before the pipeline route is even determined, Republicans have inadvertently given the President no choice but to reject Keystone XL - an unexpected holiday gift that will help us fight climate change and promote clean energy.

It is clear that Republicans and Big Oil hoped to rush approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline after the Administration decided on an additional year of review, including determination of a new route that would avoid the fragile Nebraska Sandhills. But this attempt is going to backfire as the fast-tracking attempt leaves the President no choice but to say that based on available information, the project is not in the national interest and to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.

In fact, the arguments for the pipeline are so wildly exaggerated these days that they amount to a scam – a scam of the worst kind that plays on people’s desire for security and need for jobs.

But Keystone XL would not bring energy security. The project would bring tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast where much of it would be destined for export. Oil companies in the America are exporting ever more of our oil because this is what brings them profits. This means that those who argue that Keystone XL is necessary for U.S. energy security are wrong. Security experts say that the real path to energy security is to kill the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. And even though proponents raise the specter of tar sands going to China if Keystone XL is not built – this is also false. For example, the proposal for the Northern Gateway pipeline that would go to Canada’s west coast is also experiencing at least a year of delay in the face of widespread public concerns – and fierce opposition from British Columbia’s First Nations has many believing that pipeline will never be built. Ironically, that leaves Keystone XL as the tar sands best bet for reaching China – and it leaves Americans bearing all the risk.

Keystone XL is a job killer, not a job creator. The jobs exaggerations of tar sands proponents are well documented. The pipeline will create the normal number of construction jobs that any single project would. This is not a national jobs plan and it is cruel to raise expectations that cannot be met. Rather than dirty energy projects such as the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, America needs to focus on clean energy economic development to build the type of energy-related jobs plan that means true long-term prosperity. As Senator Leahy noted yesterday in response to the new mercury rules:

“With clear and effective Clean Air Act rules, we see tremendous benefits: cleaner air, healthier and more productive citizens, and the creation of thousands of good-paying clean jobs. Skilled laborers are standing ready to fill the 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term utility jobs that the Utility Air Toxics Rule will create. This is about five times more jobs than the controversial Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline would employ. And unlike the pipeline, these clean air improvements do not gamble with the public’s health and our environment.”

So, thanks Congress for the gift of a provision that will kill a risky and reckless project. People all along the pipeline route and Americans who have suffered in the past year from the violent storms, droughts, and floods that are part of our changing climate all appreciate the gift of one less dirty energy project and the gift of hope for a cleaner energy future.

Don't Let the Keystone XL Bait and Switch Scam Diminish American Leadership

2011-12-20T13:46:27Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would bring tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast for export has become a central part of the debate in the United States about how we fight climate change. American leadership to fight climate change is critical at home and internationally. The pipeline project marks a step in the wrong direction for the United States – leading us towards dirtier forms of fuel that are not compatible with fighting climate change. However, the oil industry is trying to pull a bait and switch scam with Keystone XL – offering it as a path to economic and national security when the pipeline is actually a job killer that is mostly meant for export. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in the national interest and there are strong economic and security arguments to back this up. America can show leadership on clean energy and on fighting climate change by rejecting this dirty fuel project.

The Keystone XL pipeline debate is part of a pattern of corporate scams and misinformation from the stock market bubble of the 1990’s to the real estate bubble of the early 2000’s. Keystone XL continues this pattern of industry risk taking and ignoring of long-term dangers (in this case climate change) for increasingly smaller short-term gains.

The risks to our farms and waters of Keystone XL have been a matter of strong concern all along the pipeline pathway for many months now. The fact that this pipeline is also a job killer rather than a job creator has also been well documented. What is less well understood are the many other economic dangers of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. A recent article by former Federal Trade Commission attorney and former counsel to the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee and the Senate Judiciary Committee Henry Banta raises a number of questions when it comes to the economics of the Keystone XL pipeline project:

Hardly mentioned at all in the current debate about jobs is that the pipeline could have the effect of reducing employment in the U.S. oil and gas industry.
The notion of Canada as a more secure source must be viewed with considerable skepticism by anyone who is old enough to remember the energy crises of 1973 and 1979.
In whose interest is the end run past the refineries of the Upper Midwest? TransCanada told the Canadian Government that these U.S. refineries and their customers have been enjoying low crude oil and product prices because of Canadian crude oil. The Keystone XL line would end this “discount” and raise fuel costs in the region about $4 billion.
What advantages does the Gulf offer? Perhaps that it is a “free trade zone” meaning that the crude is free of any trade restrictions and some taxes.
Indeed there is considerable evidence that the owners of the line intend to export either crude oil or the refined product. If that is what they have in mind, what’s in it for us?
Proposals for new tar sands pipelines in Canada are facing delays due to continued public concerns and tar sands oil is unlikely to be going to Asia anytime soon unless it comes through the Keystone XL pipeline. Are the citizens of the U.S. being asked to take a significant environmental risk in order that the oil companies can get past the obstacle of an unwilling public in Canada?

Similarly, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will not help us from a security perspective. Nancy Soderberg, former deputy national security adviser and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations recently wrote an article that summarizes the security concerns with Keystone XL as follows:

Rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline is important for U.S. leadership in making sure that the security of the United States is not compromised by reliance on oil and that the U.S. plays a global leadership role in building a renewable energy economy.
As retired Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson noted in a recent blog, the pipeline’s biggest client, Valero Energy Corp., informed investors that the refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, would be focused on exports, keeping American consumers vulnerable to global oil price fluctuations.
The idea behind Keystone XL was to give Canadian businesses access to the ocean and global market, not to help America reduce its dependence on foreign oil.
Committing ourselves to projects like Keystone XL would further lock us into a global oil market that aids and abets tyrants and terrorists, and holds American consumers hostage.
Approving such a project would severely diminish U.S. global leadership in building a world based on renewable energy, combating growing greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and reducing dependence on a volatile oil market.

Climate change is a global problem. And it will not be solved without American leadership. The harm to our pocketbooks, homes, health and communities is also being felt all across our country in the violent storms, droughts, floods and fires that we have experienced even in the last year. Just this morning, the news is filled with the unusual blizzard in the southern plains.

For America to demonstrate that it is serious about tackling climate change, the world has to see us not only moving forward with clean energy, but also fighting dirty energy. Keystone XL was the first time the world noticed a serious movement to say no to dirty fuels and no to business as usual in America.

When America has been at its best, it is optimistic and pragmatic. This is the way America behaved in organizing the Berlin airlift, putting a man on the moon and accelerating us into a high tech world. The many businesses, workers and investors in America already moving toward a clean energy economy are optimistic and pragmatic and represent all that is best in America.

In contrast, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is pessimistic and cynical. The pipeline’s proponents are trying to scam people with exaggerated jobs numbers and a myth that this pipeline would make us more secure. The world is not waiting to follow a pessimistic and cynical America. The idea that we can continue to rely on dirtier and dirtier forms of energy and lead the world is absurd. The world is looking for leadership to fight climate change – the worst economic and national security threat facing us in coming decades. America needs to stand strong against oil industry ploys to push a tar sands pipeline as a jobs plan or a security venture when it is neither. We need to show leadership and reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and other tar sands expansion projects.

Take 60 seconds to read 6 reasons why America needs to say 'No' to the risky and reckless Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

2011-12-18T15:19:27Z

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

Legislation headed to the House this week gives President Obama 60 days to decide whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would carry the dirtiest oil on the planet mined and drilled from under the forests of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. That’s ridiculous. The Obama administration is on the case and has said it will take another year to conduct a thorough review of the economic, national security and environmental facets of this project. It’s irresponsible for Congress to insist that review be eliminated as a gift to Big Oil. It leaves the administration no choice but to bury this boondoggle for good – and we don’t need 60 days to figure out why.

Take 60 seconds to read 6 reasons why it's time to say ‘No’ to the risky and reckless Keystone XL tar sands pipeline now.

1. The dirtiest oil on the planet.

It takes two tons of tar sands – strip-mined or drilled from the forest floor - to produce a single barrel of bitumen:, a low-grade, high-sulfur crude oil that must be extensively refined to be turned into fuel. Producing bitumen generates three times the carbon pollution of producing conventional North American crude oil. And the additional refining required to turn this crud into fuel only makes matters worse.

2. Killing more jobs than it creates.

House Republicans claim the pipeline will create tens of thousands of jobs. It won't. The pipeline would create, at most, 6,500 temporary construction jobs, very few of which would be local hires, according to the U.S. State Department. After that, it would leave only "hundreds" of permanent jobs, according to TransCanada, the Canadian company that wants to build the pipeline. A Cornell University study concludes the pipeline would actually kill more jobs than it would create, by reducing investment in the clean energy economy that already employs 2.7 million Americans.

3. Making us more oil-dependent; not more secure.

The pipeline would terminate at Texas refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico. From there tar sands crude could be exported anywhere in the world. Indeed, that's part of the business plan for some of the companies that have promised to buy the oil. Military experts advise that the Keystone XL pipeline would perpetuate our deadly oil dependence and will not make us more secure.

4. Taking on a risk to benefit oil companies that Canadians themselves are not willing to take.

Even Canada has put the brakes on their new proposed tar sands pipelines (the Northern Gateway tar sands pipeline to the west coast and the Trailbreaker tar sands pipeline to the east) due to the need to take more time to listen to public concerns about water and safety. Why should Americans carry a risk that Canadians themselves are not willing to take?

5. Threatening America’s breadbasket and U.S. waterways.

The pipeline would cut through the heart of the Great Plains, land of more than 250,000 ranches and farms, putting our croplands and food producers at risk of oil spills across the American heartland. Republican leaders want an approval of the pipeline despite the fact that Nebraska has not even settled on a route to avoid the precious Ogallala Aquifer, where millions of Americans get their drinking water. Further, Keystone XL would cross more than 1,500 waterways, from the Yellowstone River in Montana to Pine Island Bayou in Texas, threatening them with the kind of accident that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil in the Yellowstone River last summer and put 20 times that much tar sands oil in Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, in a spill that hasn’t been cleaned up yet.

6. Laying waste to Canada’s boreal forest, home of our backyard birds.

Tar sands producers have already destroyed an area the size of Chicago creating an industrial wasteland of toxic sludge dams in the heart of Canada's boreal forest, one of the last truly wild places on Earth and a critical nesting region for America’s backyard birds. If it continues, the total sacrifice area will be as large as the State of Florida.

The pipeline is a conduit to the past. Rather than deepening our addiction to fossil fuels, it's time we did what presidents reaching back to Richard Nixon have called on us to do and reduce our dangerous dependence on oil.

It's time to invest in wind, solar and other renewable fuels and the energy efficient cars, workplaces and homes of tomorrow.

Go to www.stoptar.org to take action.