Tar Sands Report – Why Dirty Fuels Don’t Make Sense for America

By Larry J. Schweiger

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Today National Wildlife Federation is releasing a new report Staying Hooked on a Dirty Fuel: Why Canadian Tar Sands are a Bad Bet for the United States.  The report is being released one week before the public comment period closes on the U.S. State Department’s flawed environmental impact statement on the Keystone XL pipeline and in the midst of the continuing BP oil disaster.

I’m spending this week in Venice, Louisiana again, touring this national treasure, seeing injured wildlife and knowing that even more of this tragedy is unfolding beneath the surface.  For weeks BP has taken out full page ads in national papers assuring the nation “We will get this done.  We will make this right.”

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But when it comes to wetlands, you cannot clean oil out of wetlands once it gets in.  The only hope for recovery is large scale restoration.  And the animals and livelihoods, once lost, are gone.

Both the BP oil spill and tar sands are shameful monuments to the empty promises of safety and responsibility made by oil companies. Since they can’t make it right once the damage occurs, it’s time for us to step up and demand clean energy choices instead.