For the cadre of Big Oil backers in the House, chief among them Speaker John Boehner, it’s one more chance to do the bidding of special interests. The question is – how far in this game of chicken are they willing to go?  Might they scuttle one million jobs that will be created by the transportation bill so oil companies can reap profits by building the dangerous Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. NWF’s Jeremy Symons said it well a few months ago and it still applies,

“Speaker Boehner is willing to put jobs at risk once again by hijacking the transportation bill.”

Here at NWF, we worked up a chart to check the spin of Keystone XL backers who are pondering scuttling the transportation bill.  Those big long bars on the right represent jobs that would be created or supported by the transportation bill.  Those little slivers on the left represent the industry’s own job projections by building Keystone XL. It’s below.

You can help stop the Keystone XL pipeline and tell Congress to protect wildlife instead of Big Oil profits.  Click here to take action.

For now, the President and the U.S. Senate have rejected this scheme, though President Obama has openly invited pipeline builder TransCanada to submit a new proposal. TransCanada took a big step in that direction this week, by announcing a new route. Why? Nebraskans deemed the old route too environmentally risky to sensitive habitat.  Well the new route appears no better. It still crosses the Nebraska Sandhills, and it still crosses the Ogallala Aquifer.

Sandhill Cranes would be in danger from the proposed new route for Keystone XL. Photo from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Unique Sandhills and the Ogallala

Many experts have cautioned against locating the pipeline through Nebraska’s Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer, from ranchers to university professors.

The Nebraska sandhills are the largest dune formation in the United States.  The pipeline could splice right through this unique habitat of sand dunes, grasslands, wetlands and groundwater-fed lakes.  There are over 1,000 plant and animal species in this region.  The sandhills and especially central Nebraska are critical stopover points for millions of migrating birds in the spring, notably sandhill cranes.

The proposed pipeline’s route also cuts through the Ogallala aquifer, a geologic formation 174,000 square miles in size, larger than the state of California and spanning the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.  The Ogallala provides drinking water for millions of people and around 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation nationwide.  Irrigated agriculture is critical to the economy of many communities that draw from the Ogallala. “The Ogallala Aquifer, whose total water storage is about equal to that of Lake Huron in the Midwest, is the single most important source of water in the High Plains region, providing nearly all the water for residential, industrial, and agricultural use,” reports the Water Encyclopedia.

Pipelines break; pipelines leak. TransCanada predicted that the Keystone XL pipeline would have 11 spills over the next 50 years, but University of Nebraska professor John Stansbury puts the estimate at eight times that, 91 over 50 years.  He should know.  He is a professor of environmental and water resources engineering.  TransCanada’s Keystone One pipeline had 14 spills in its first year alone, a disheartening fact.

Our Water in the Crosshairs

Of particularly concern are the largely unknown consequences of oil seeping into the Ogallala. In a June 2011 letter, University of Nebraska professors John Gates and Wayne Woldt wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that little is known about how an oil plume would behave in the sandhills and the Ogallala, that there is only one study of long-term plume hydrogeochemistry and that the conditions of that spill’s location, in Minnesota, are not comparable to the conditions of the sandhills.

The Ogallala lies under permeable layers of sand, gravel and rock, a type of soil mixture that absorbs water like a sponge, conditions make the area particularly vulnerable to oil leaks and spills because water can move quickly through this soil.  “All the conditions are right for producing potentially very short lag times between an oil release near the surface of the earth and water contamination in the aquifer below,” John Gates, assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, University of Nebraska, has warned.

The Keystone XL pipeline will not bring us energy security or international security.  And equally important, it will not provide us economic or environmental security.  Americans take the risks, and oil companies get rich.  It’s a sucker’s deal and we should reject it.

You can help!  Take action now to protect wildlife like Sandhill Cranes, wolves and others that are in harm’s path from tar sands.

"Windmills Not Oil Spills," read the sign of this young opponent to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Image from Bold Nebraska.

“Americans don’t want our transportation jobs and investments stuck in gridlock because Speaker Boehner insists on pushing oil industry handouts,” says Jeremy Symons, senior vice president for National Wildlife Federation. “The Senate has already voted down the oil lobby’s plan to rush the Keystone pipeline, but Speaker Boehner is willing to put jobs at risk once again by hijacking the transportation bill.”

As in past votes, it’s done under the guise of gas price relief and to stimulate job growth. Independent observers have noted those job and price claims are inflated at best:

• Gas Prices: The Washington Post said the claim that prices “would” go down was wrong.  In fact, the industry has admitted prices would actually rise in many states if Keystone XL is built. See our media memo that lays out the oil industry scheme.
• Jobs: The claims of more jobs come from industry purchased assessments.  Once again, the Washington Post fact checker didn’t find that very credible. Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute has said the net effect could even be job losses when you consider the devastating effects of spills on sectors like agriculture and ranching.

Take Action

What Keystone XL does do is deepen our addiction to dirty fuels like tar sands.  The Canadian heavy crude it will carry is projected to harm species like wolves and caribou. We don’t have to let that happen. We can urge Congress to protect wildlife and reject Keystone XL.  Make your voice heard! 

It’s a double whammy of trouble for them. First they’ll endure a barrage of painful and disruptive noise from the surveys, and should the oil platforms ever get built, their lives will be at risk daily from the inevitable spills. Two years after the BP Spill in the Gulf, have we failed to learn our lesson?

Blasts that Separate Mother and Calf

Baby dolphins, known as calves, will stay close to their mothers for up to 6 years. (Photo by J. D. Ebberly/Flickr)

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the cumulative noise of all sea-going vessels is an incessant drone of near-constant sound in a growing number of oceans regions. Seismic surveys, conducted during offshore oil and gas exploration, use rapid discharges of compressed air from air gun arrays. These send acoustic shock waves down through the water column that is reflected back from sub-sea rock strata. The blasts are emitted every 10 seconds and may be as loud as 250 decibels.

Other sources of acoustic pollution associated with offshore oil and gas activities include drilling, platform machinery, vessel traffic, low-flying aircraft and helicopters, and the movement of oil, gas or water through valves and under-sea pipelines. These intense sounds travel a long distance across the ocean. A 2009 workshop of experts, sponsored by Okeanos Foundation for the Sea, reported, “These surveys can last for months and the noise they produce is virtually ubiquitous in the world’s oceans.”

In the end, the most tragic thing may be the degrading of habitat. “Chronic ocean noise – the ubiquitous din of shipping and fishing vessels, seismic surveys, pile driving: all of it – slowly but surely degrades the quality of habitat available to acoustically sensitive species,” writes Dr. Rob Williams of Oceans Initiative. Unlike some of the more intractable threats facing aquatic life however, this one is very solvable he writes. We need to cut the noise, and that means turning down the volume on the underwater heavy metal concert, not turning it up.

Sick Dolphins Reported in Gulf

Dolphins are social and intelligent animals who live in large groups called pods. Here is a dolphin dance, off of Kona Coast, Hawaii. (Photo by SteveD/Flickr)

These dolphins have a low body weight, anemia, low blood sugar and symptoms of liver and lung disease. It is so serious that the fisheries arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared an “unusual mortality event” for cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in the northern Gulf of Mexico from February 2010 to the present.

As of March 25, there were 706 cetacean “strandings” or beaching events of which five percent stranded alive and 95 percent stranded dead. Repeat: 95 percent dead. Even in the aftermath of the BP/Deepwater Horizon spill, we need to remind the oil and gas industry and its backers that seismic surveys and oil drilling can have huge consequences. After the BP spill, NWF Senior Scientist Doug Inkley said, “The Gulf oil disaster is to marine life what smoking is to humans – it could kill you, and if it doesn’t your general health suffers.”

We are still living with the legacy of the BP spill. In fact, some of the results are just emerging. Let’s not have a Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Atlantic.

You can help NWF’s call for wildlife-friendly clean energy by donating to help us protect marine mammals and by learning more about our Gulf recovery efforts.

Gray Wolf in Glacier National Park by Susan A. Locke

Wild wolves and caribou have thrived in balance in Canada for generations in the country’s vast boreal forest, but now oil companies have moved in to extract tar sands oil. As fossil fuel activity destroys habitat for caribou herds, Canadian wildlife officials are expected to poison thousands of wolves with strychnine-laced bait and shoot them from helicopters. Strychnine is a deadly poison that causes an excruciating death. NWF is calling on the Canadian and Alberta governments not to scapegoat wolves, and to manage their environment responsibly.

***Stop the wolf killing. Take ACTION now***

Watch David’s Today Show Segment

Updated March 16, 2012, 10:30 a.m.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Keystone XL Scheme and Wolves’ Projected Destruction

Instead of scapegoating wolves, Canada should be protecting caribou habitat to ensure their survival, Mizejewski says. As customers for Canadian crude, Americans share the blame and the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would only exacerbate the calamity.

Mizejewski, NWF naturalist and author, makes frequent television appearances on “The Today Show” (below, watch his recent appearance with two Bengal tiger cubs) to help people connect with nature in their own neighborhoods and beyond. He is also the host and co-producer of Backyard Habitat on Animal Planet, a program to help people transform their yards and gardens into thriving habitats for birds and local wildlife.

The wolves featured on “Today” come from Howling Woods Farm, a New Jersey based animal rescue shelter.

You have a voice! Tune in and tell Congress and the Obama administration to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.  Wildlife is counting on us.

TO:                         Editorial and Opinion Writers

Photo from "Images of Money" on Flickr Commons.

SUBJECT:         Energy Prices will Rise in Many States with Keystone XL

DATE:                    March 1, 2012

In the last six months the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has increasingly been used by politicians to score political points in the broader debate about the future of American energy policy. MSNBC had a piece yesterday that exposed the misinformation behind the political games. Your readers deserve the facts as well. This memo tackles one of the many questions surrounding the pipeline: if built, what effect will it have on gas prices?

Before we get started, a couple of background points: The company behind Keystone XL (or “KXL”) is called TransCanada Corporation. The oil that would be pumped through KXL would mostly come from the tar sands region of Alberta, Canada, and would transport the oil 1,700 miles to Gulf refineries in Texas. It’s higher in pollution than conventional oil and carries a heavy environmental cost. Tar sands are a mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumen, a viscous type of oil that must be diluted before it can be pumped through pipelines. Bitumen is more corrosive on pipelines than conventional oil and it is more toxic and harder to clean up in the event of a spill, as proven by the devastating spill of over one million gallons into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.  It also requires special equipment to refine into usable gasoline or diesel.

REROUTES SUPPLY

Contrary to industry spin, Keystone XL would not increase oil supply in the United States. Several pipelines already run from Canada to refineries in the U.S. that service America’s Midwestern states.  The Department of Energy has concluded that there is already enough excess pipeline capacity to carry all the oil Canada can produce for the foreseeable future. What Keystone XL is really about is getting the oil to the port refineries on the Gulf Coast, and the vast profits oil companies stand to make by refining their oil and pushing it to the international market. That’s why so many call Keystone XL an export pipeline, and why the industry resisted a Congressional effort to require the oil stay in the U.S.

Oil companies and Canadian officials have said the biggest factor holding down the price for Canadian crude is also the most basic—they need a way to ship their product overseas and get around an oversupplied U.S. and Canada. Demand for oil in the U.S. has been declining in recent years, while Canada’s oil production is growing.   Keystone XL isn’t about U.S. energy security, it’s shipping oil to  Europe, Asia, and South America, thus driving up the price for Canadian oil. Yes, there’s hard proof, read on.

HIGHER PRICES IN 15 STATES

In this case, the Midwestern markets that are already using tar sands oil would get burned. Consumers in the following states would pay more at the pump: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

Ask yourself, would oil companies don’t spend $7 billion on a project because they want to lower prices?  They want higher profits, and they are going to get higher prices because they can charge more for their oil. TransCanada’s shipping partners (Valero, Shell, Total Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Trafigura, and Cenovus/Encana) want to be able to boost prices in the Midwest.[i]

OIL COMPANIES CAUGHT

And now the incontrovertible evidence:  TransCanada has confirmed that high prices are all part of the plan. In filings with the Canadian government, the company asserted that “Access to the [U.S. Gulf Coast] via the Keystone XL Pipeline is expected to strengthen Canadian crude oil pricing in [the U.S. Midwest” and “The resultant increase in the price of heavy crude is estimated to provide an increase in annual revenue to the Canadian producing industry in 2013 of US $2 billion to US $3.9 billion.”[ii] TransCanada has admitted to reporters and to Congress that Keystone XL will raise gas prices in the Midwest, even though politicians love to claim that it will instead reduce prices.[iii]

An independent analysis of Keystone XL (done by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute) found that “consumers in the Midwest could be paying 10 to 20 cents more per gallon for gasoline and diesel fuel. These additional costs will suppress other spending and will therefore cost jobs.”[iv] And Philip Verleger, a respected economist and oil industry market expert, determined that the project would let TransCanada and Canadian oil producers manipulate Midwestern gas prices to the tune of $500 million annually.[v] KXL’s backers have often touted its supposed “energy security” benefits, but Keystone XL isn’t about energy security.  TransCanada beat back an effort in Congress to keep Keystone XL’s oil off the international market,[vi] because they know they can boost prices and profits by finding new customers overseas.

Again, it all comes back to exports, and it’s revealing to look at what the industry is already doing: Gasoline exports have actually tripled in the last year to 600,000 barrels per day, even though gas has increased by 42 cents a gallon in the same time frame.[vii]  America is becoming the middle man in the global oil business – drilling and importing lots of crude oil but exporting more and more refined diesel and gasoline products.  The U.S. inherits the risks, and gets no reward. To us, it sounds like a sucker’s deal.

[Editor's Note:  This article was primarily written by NWF staffer Peter LaFontaine, with editing by Tony Iallonardo.]

>> Speak Up to Protect Wolves from Dirty Oil!

Wolf pups are likely innocent victims of Canadian oil and gas development.

Strychnine progresses painfully from muscle spasms to convulsions to suffocation over a period of hours.  The NWF paper says the poison will also put at risk animals like raptors, wolverines and cougars that eat the poisoned bait or scavenge on the carcasses of poisoned wildlife.

Here’s what Canada’s Minister of Environment Peter Kent said in September:  “Culling is an accepted if regrettable scientific practice and means of controlling populations and attempting to balance what civilization has developed.  I’ve got to admit, it troubles me that that’s what is necessary to protect this species,” Kent commented. Simon Dyer of the Pembina Institute estimates that many thousands of wolves could be destroyed over five years.

Instead of resorting to euphemistic descriptions of a repugnant method of killing, Mr. Kent and Canadian officials should be stopping the habitat destruction in the first place.  Destroying and fragmenting caribou habitat to produce one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet means fewer caribou and fewer wolves just to line the pockets of Big Oil.

It’s increasingly par for the course in Canada, as the nation continues its slide from “Green to Gray.” What’s disturbing is that Keystone XL commits the U.S. to a decades-long partnership in these ”crimes” against wildlife.

Canada Documents Caribou Decline

Losses of caribou from broken habitat are telling us something is very wrong with environmental practices in Canada.

Habitat Protection, Restoration Should Be the Focus

Incredibly, the Canadian government actually acknowledges that carving up forests is threatening caribou.  “Boreal caribou are primarily threatened by a reduction in the availability and suitability of habitat necessary to carry out the life processes necessary for their survival and reproduction,” states Environment Canada’s proposed caribou recovery plan.  Why then, we have to ask, are they not stopping this destruction? More development means less habitat, fewer caribou and fewer wolves. Both caribou and wolves need a healthy habitat.

If Canada wants to protect caribou herds, they should protect caribou habitat. Scapegoating wolves to produce profits for the oil industry is cruel and wrong.

We need your help to protect wildlife!  Get involved and help us stop this from happening. Take action to protect wolves and many more wildlife at risk from dirty tar sands oil.

Polar bears are iconic arctic species, threatened by global warming and big oil companies. (Image: Christy Mazrimas-Ott)

There was a time when Canada, symbolized by the maple leaf, was a “green,” environmentally conscientious neighbor. Remember, in the 1980s, Canada came knocking on America’s door, rightfully demanding that the United States curb the sulfur dioxide emissions causing the acid rain that was killing Canada’s lakes and streams.

But today, alarms are going off up north. Increasing capture by polluter interests, Canada’s sliding into shades of gray. Experts say Ontario could lose its beloved polar bears because of a warming climate. World polar bear expert Ian Stirling, University of Alberta, citing Arctic ice loss at 10 percent per decade since 1979, says it’s unlikely this iconic animal will survive on the Ontario and Manitoba shores of Hudson Bay in 20 to 30 years.

Another study predicts trouble for caribou. Some of Canada’s caribou face the possibility of local extinction because of industrial development in northeastern Alberta and the lack of effective habitat protection. Woodland caribou is listed as a threatened species, provincially and federally. “The recently released draft recovery strategy allows for 95 percent of woodland caribou habitat in northeastern Alberta to be lost in order to promote oil sands development,” the Pembina Institute has warned.

Then there’s cod. Canada had to impose a moratorium on cod fishing off the coast of Newfoundland because the cod fishery collapsed, some say because of lax government oversight, poorly-managed over-fishing and exploitation.

Is Canada asleep? No, Canada is in fact very much awake and very busy working on behalf of polluters.

Climate Blind

First let’s look at climate change.

Canada is one of the world biggest emitters of greenhouse gas pollutants. “After committing to targets in Copenhagen, Environment Canada’s projections show that Canada’s current federal and provincial policies will achieve only a quarter of the reductions needed by 2020 – leaving 75 percent of the work as a question mark….”  P.J. Partington has commented.

Canada ranks 54^th out of 61 countries internationally – two points lower than the U.S. – earning a “very poor performance” label in the December 6 global climate performance assessment of world governments’ efforts to curb climate change.

In the negotiations in Durban, Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change on December 12 to worldwide denunciation, citing the country’s previous commitment as a mistake. Environment Minister Peter Kent said, “It’s now clear that Kyoto is not the path forward to a global solution to climate change. If anything it’s an impediment.” China, once recalcitrant, agreed to limits on greenhouse gas emissions and called Canada’s decision “an excuse to shirk responsibility.”

Oozing with Oil

Tailings pond north of Syncrude processing facility and upgrader (Courtesy of the Pembina Institute)

The latest chapter in Canada’s Big Oil binge is big bad bitumen, Canada’s exploitation of tar sands oil, one of the most polluting, highest-carbon, greenhouse-gas-causing fuels on the planet.

TransCanada and partners propose to build the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700-mile pipeline through five Midwestern U.S. states from Alberta to Texas and ship 700,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day for refinement into products likely to be exported.

According to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate because it could lead to higher energy prices for Americans, the Keystone corporate interests are Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Conoco Phillips Canada Marketing & Trading ULC, EnCana Corporations, Shell Trading Canada, Total E&P Canada Ltd and Trafigura Canada General Partnership.

The environmental havoc already underway from extraction in Alberta is no secret. To produce one barrel, extractors level the forest, dig up four tons of earth, consume two to four barrels of fresh water, burn large amounts of natural gas and create toxic sludge holding ponds. Alberta’s booming tar sands production is polluting the Athabasca River and converting forests and farmlands to wastelands.

The Keystone XL pipeline will increase production of this dirty fuel by 50 percent. Some will argue that Canada only produces less than two percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but by producing, shipping and exporting tar sands oil at an ever-escalating pace, Canada is promoting a dirty fuel to the rest of the world to burn, thus increasing emissions multi-fold worldwide.

Syncrude oil sands operations (courtesy of the Pembina Institute)

Pro-pipeline pals in Congress have crafted legislative riders to usurp and overrule President Barack Obama, established review processes and science. Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper even got President Obama’s ear at the White House in early December and made his case for what he dubbed a “no-brainer.”

Talk about pulling out all the stops. Let’s get that oil flowing as the oil lobbyists oil the Washington skids!

And to rub yet more salt into the wounds, on December 8, the Canadian government approved yet more tar sands production by giving the go-ahead for the construction of the $8.9 billion Joslyn North Mine in northern Alberta.

And there’s more to come. Imperial Oil CEO Bruce Marsh said that his company, an Exxon subsidiary, is planning to start the Kearl oil sands mining project in Canada in 2012 and they expect to produce 110,000 barrels a day and maybe up to the 345,000 barrels a day the Canadian government has approved.

As they say on TV commercials: WAIT, there’s more!

Environment Canada has not implemented its long-term scientific research plan, a plan that undergirds the country’s work to mitigate air and water pollution and other environmental risks, charged Commissioner Scott Vaughan, of Canada’s Office of the Auditor General in early December and the department has stopped issuing many environmental reports. So they don’t know what the problems are or the effectiveness of their policies?

Vaughan also issued a recent audit showing that Environment Canada’s enforcement program is not ensuring adequate compliance with environmental regulations and is failing to target the biggest polluters.

Vaughan also found that several Canadian government agencies do not enforce safety regulations for shipping chemicals on highways and railroads and for pumping oil and gas in the country. He reported an average of two accidents a week involving the transport of dangerous materials across Canada. He concluded, for example, “Management has not acted on long-standing concerns regarding inspection and emergency plan review practices,” for transporting dangerous goods.

Accompanying a map of numerous approved and proposed oil and gas pipelines across Canada, Vaughn wrote, “These pipelines, which are located in both rural and urban areas and across different terrains, require ongoing surveillance and maintenance to ensure that they continue to operate according to the National Energy Board Act, its regulations, and standards such as the Canadian Standards Association’s Oil and Gas Pipeline Systems standard. Pipeline incidents, such as gas leaks and oil spills, have occurred across Canada.” Exhibit 1.4 shows over 50 pipeline incidents. This comes against a backdrop of confident assurances from TransCanada that the Keystone pipeline would traverse the U.S. safely. Huh?

A Graying Canada

Canada, the second largest country in the world after Russia, has vast landscapes – three oceans, the tundra, plains, mountains, boreal forests, wetlands, rivers, lakes and coastline. Given its bounty, Canada should be proud and protective of its natural resources. National motto: From Sea to Sea.

But somewhere along the way, Canada has lost its conservation conscience, as it propels itself into an oil-producing, carbon-crazy frenzy.

Polar bears and caribou on the road to extinction. Cod struggling to thrive in the north Atlantic. Does Canada care? Does Canada prefer gray to green?

House Speaker John Boehner has been speaking alright. For polluters. (Official U.S. House Portrait)

The speaker is adamant about doing Big Oil a big favor for the holidays and forcing a rider to unrelated middle class tax relief.  To sell a project that NWF’s senior Vice President Jeremy Symons said amounts to the “next oil disaster,” the Speaker has adopted the rhetoric of his pals in the polluter lobby who would be enriched by building a dangerous tar sands pipeline called Keystone XL.

In a press conference this week, Symons said:

“A year after the BP disaster in the Gulf, Speaker Boehner is ready to create America’s next oil disaster by bypassing regulators and rushing a project. Tar sands oil is corrosive and more dangerous to pipelines than regular oil, and tar sands pipelines are leaking across the nation at an unprecedented rate. The first keystone tar sands pipeline is only a year old and it has already leaked 14 times. Transcanada has agreed to re-route around the fragile Sand Hills, but the pipeline will still cross the Ogallala Aquifer and put this vital clean water supply at risk.”

The pipeline will also explode carbon emissions that are heating the planet, kill wildlife, and crush U.S. efforts to get off of dirty fuels.

Ah, but we get jobs, right?  Not so much.  The industry will say anything to have their payday, anything but the truth that is.

The one actual job study not funded by polluters was done by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute. Their conclusion: Keystone XL is likely to kill more jobs than it creates.

Ok, so we will get something like 50 steady jobs from this pipeline, but as Cornell asks, at what cost to our economy.  Canadian tar sands are the most expensive source of oil on the planet, and a long-term addiction to tar sands oil will drain out economy of a trillion dollars that we need to keep here in America.

No one did a better job in shoveling the industry’s rhetoric back in their faces than Stephen Colbert, who strung together a string of Fox News clips that bluster bigger and bigger job lies.  Finally, Colbert tops them all, saying there will be ‘billions of jobs!’

Big Oil has big plans to jeopardize America’s clean energy future by expanding the production of tar sands oil–one of the most destructive, dirty, and costly fuels in the world. Urge your members of Congress to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. 

Keystone XL Legacy: More Tar Sands Pollution (image courtesy www.circleofblue.org)

Nebraska Republican Congressman Lee Terry, now a close ally to the tar sands industry, announced on Friday his plans to introduce a bill to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve – not require FERC to consider or evaluate — the pipeline within 30 days of receiving an application.

Under current law, the President has the responsibility to decide on projects that cross international boundaries like Keystone XL, to decide on the merits, on the basis of facts and public comments, not make a decision on an artificial timeline mandated by Congress.

We’ve made clear before that tar sands pipelines need more study, because the fuel is more corrosive, and pumped heated and at high pressure.  His plan amounts to skipping a review altogether and replacing it with a rubber stamp approval.

Adding insult to injury, Congressman Terry told a reporter that the House leadership will stick his pipeline bill into the presumably “must-pass” payroll tax cut and unemployment extension bill that Congress will vote on before year’s end.

Tar Sands Toxic Sludge (image courtesy: www.cbc.ca)

So in essence, the Terry team which presumably includes pipeline Canadian petro-giant TransCanada, wants to set up a fast-track, insider-greased, totally untested, expedited, merits-be-damned permitting process and ignore all the science, analysis and public comment on the environmental and other impacts of this 2,000-mile pipeline.

What’s curious is Congressman Terry will have to explain his scheme to the ranchers and farms whose land and jobs would be endangered by Keystone XL running through his state. His bill may satisfy the holiday wish list of big polluters, but at what cost to the people who would have to clean the mess from a major spill.

Extracting more dirty energy and shipping it down through the heart of the U.S. from Canada is not the answer to American energy security.  In fact, company officials have all but said the oil would be exported. It also sets us back in creating homegrown clean energy industry jobs that can power our economy for generations while reducing the threat of climate change.