Protesters line sidewalk after being turned away from State Department meeting parking lot by Americans for Prosperity

Yesterday, the State Department kicked off the final round of public meetings on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in Kansas, the home state of the billionaire industrialist brothers, Charles and David Koch. The Koch brothers are notorious for funding anti-environment, anti-progressive, and anti-Democratic astroturf campaigns. According to a report by Greenpeace, they even outdid ExxonMobile in funding climate denial groups since 2005. The Koch brothers are also President Obama’s bitterest political rivals.

Unsurprisingly, the Koch brothers’ front group Americans for Prosperity was gaming the system at the Keystone XL public meeting in Topeka, Kansas, attempting to prevent community members opposed to the pipeline from expressing their views to the State Department.

According to National Wildlife Federation representative Kendall Mackey, here’s what happened:

“Last week, I called the Expo Center in Topeka where the State Department’s meeting would be held. They told me that I wasn’t allowed to demonstrate or distribute information in the parking lot because the people who rented the space wouldn’t want people opposed to the pipeline there.

“So I called the State Department to confirm that the meeting was, in fact, being held by the State Department to take public comments on Keystone XL. I was told that the parking lot and the area around the facility was to remain neutral.

“When I arrived at the meeting, there were two bus loads of people and a giant truck with signs in support of the pipeline in the parking lot, and giant signs around the buildings. So I called the State Department to inform them that the space was not remaining neutral.

“One of the community members who came to speak out against the pipeline told me he had pulled into the parking lot and was told he had to park on the street after being asked if he was for or against the pipeline. I called the State Department back to tell them what had happened.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

James Holly, community member told he couldn’t park in the parking lot where the State Department meeting was being held.

“State Department officials then met with Expo Center security to clarify that anyone could park in the parking lot. At that time, I asked the head of security why the signs were still up in the parking lot. He explained that the buildings adjacent to where the meeting was being held had been rented by a group that was for the pipeline and they were allowed to have signage.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Charlie Walker, Head of Security, explaining why Americans for Prosperity was allowed to demonstrate in the parking lot.

“In an email I received from a State Department official shortly thereafter, I was informed that Americans for Prosperity had rented the adjacent building and was allowed to put up external displays. Even though I had inquired about this issue prior to the hearing and was told by the State Department that the parking lot and facilities surrounding the meeting were to remain neutral, Americans for Prosperity found a way to game the system.”

——– Original message ——–
Subject: Re: Topeka Expo
From: “Nassmacher, Wendy L”
To: Kendall Mackey
CC:

More — I’ve spoken with the venue representatives, and they said the “Americans for prosperity” group rented the building near that gazebo, and therefore are able to have the signage outside.

I had been told the venue would not rent out areas to other groups, but they were defining that more narrowly than I had understood.  In fact, the Expo Center has a wider variety of buildings and separate venues than I had realized and they do have other things going on simultaneous with our event.

The venue representative explained that any organization that rents one of their exhibit halls can then put up external displays, but otherwise, the Expo Center does not allow interest groups to set up or demonstrate in the parking lots.

I thought you said last week that you had contacted the Expo Center directly?  What did they tell you?

- Wendy

Despite causing the State Department’s public meeting debacle in Kansas, the Koch brothers previously denied having any interest in Keystone XL. Earlier this year, InsideClimate News reported that the Koch brothers are positioned to be big winners if the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline receives a Presidential Permit from the Obama Administration.

Then, as Congressman Lee Terry’s (R-NE) ill-conceived legislation to expedite the pipeline’s permitting process was moving through the House of Representatives, Congressman Waxman (D-CA) inquired about what the Koch brothers stand to gain if Keystone XL is approved. In response, the secretive Koch brothers claimed they had “no financial stake” and had not taken a position on the issue. Yesterday’s hearing seems to set the record straight.

Help Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Help stop the Keystone XL pipeline from threatening sandhill cranes and other wildlife! Urge President Obama and the U.S. State Department to keep dangerous tar sands oil pipelines out of America’s Heartland.

Aerial shot of Alberta tar sands taken during NWF flyover

“We call on the State Department NOT to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline or to take any actions that lead to the further extraction of Tar Sands oil from Alberta, Canada,” said the presidents of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) in a statement today.

The two union leaders have right what Keystone XL proponents have wrong. They said, “We need jobs, but not the ones based on increasing our reliance on Tar Sands oil.”

Yesterday, we uncovered how TransCanada, the company behind Keystone XL, has been using Americans’ insecurity about the economy to their advantage by steadily inflating their jobs claims for the project. Their jobs claims have gone from 3,500 to 118,000. But regardless of how many jobs the pipeline might create, the Obama Administration needs to take a hard look at the trade-offs. Whether President Obama and Secretary Clinton like it or not, the permit decision for Keystone XL has come to symbolize a fork in the road for the Administration and will help define its legacy on clean energy and climate change.

They can permit a pipeline that would raise America’s fuel bill by $4 billion per year, have 91 spills of more than 50 barrels during its first 50 years of operation, increase our annual carbon footprint as much as adding more than 4 million cars to the road, and deepen our dependence by nearly 1 million barrels per day on the most destructive source of oil on the planet.

Or, as the two union leaders recommend, they can make “public investments in infrastructure modernization and repair, energy conservation and climate protection a means of putting people to work and laying the foundations of a green and sustainable economic future for the United States.”

The alternative presented by ATU and TWU sound a lot more like the action on clean energy and climate change that voters were promised in 2008.

Help Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Help stop the Keystone XL pipeline from threatening sandhill cranes and other wildlife! Urge President Obama and the U.S. State Department to keep dangerous tar sands oil pipelines out of America’s Heartland.

Nebraskans protesting Keystone XL tar sands pipeline

Canadian oil giants are trading on Americans’ insecurity about the U.S. economy to sell us their risky Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Their job claims amount to little more than snake oil and won’t cure what ails our economy. Today, they got a hand from the American Petroleum Institute (API), which held a tele-press conference to defend TransCanada’s proposed pipeline in advance of the State Department’s release of a Final Environmental Impact Statement for the project, which is expected any day.

TransCanada, API, and other Keystone XL proponents have had their hands full. They’ve been plagued by repeated spills from TransCanada’s year-old Keystone tar sands pipeline, reports that TransCanada’s land agents have used bullying tactics against farmers and ranchers whose property is crossed by Keystone XL’s proposed route, and statements by TransCanada that Keystone XL would actually increase America’s fuel bill by $4 billion per year.

So they’ve turned to playing up one of the issues Americans are particularly sensitive about — jobs.

But yet again, TransCanada’s claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. In 2008, a report included in TransCanada’s Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL to the State Department said they anticipate “a peak workforce of approximately 3,500 to 4,200 construction personnel” to build the pipeline. In 2010, TransCanada put out a press release that said, “During construction, Keystone XL would create 13,000 jobs and further produce 118,000 spin-off jobs.” In 2011, TransCanada put out a fact sheet that said Keystone XL would “create about 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs.” Of course, none of these estimates accounted for the jobs losses that would result from increasing America’s fuel bill by $4 billion per year.

Since 2008, there has been a clear upward trend in TransCanada’s jobs claims for Keystone XL. Why? Perhaps because there has also been an upward trend in the amount of opposition TransCanada has encountered to their project.

Sure, their initial estimate of 3,500 to 4,200 construction jobs didn’t account for all the indirect and spin-off jobs that would be created to support construction of the pipeline. But a closer look at their analysis reveals gross exaggeration. For example, TransCanada’s Perryman Group report, which has formed the basis for many of their jobs claims, estimated that Keystone XL would create 22,582 retail trade jobs. I’d be very interested to know how 3,500 to 4,200 construction jobs would, in turn, create 22,582 retail trade jobs. And if TransCanada’s track record is any indication, some of the indirect jobs won’t even be American jobs. There are reports that TransCanada’s use of defective steel from India led to their problems with the Keystone tar sands pipeline.

In response to all this, Keystone XL proponents could say that at the end of the day, whether it’s 3,500 jobs or 118,000 jobs, the pipeline will create jobs. That’s not good enough.  TransCanada’s inflating jobs claims just deflates Americans’ trust in the Canadian company even more. If we can’t trust TransCanada, why would we allow them to build a risky pipeline across American lands and waters? Investing in domestic clean energy jobs is what Americans need, not polluter snake oil.

Help Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Help stop the Keystone XL pipeline from threatening sandhill cranes and other wildlife! Urge President Obama and the U.S. State Department to keep dangerous tar sands oil pipelines out of America’s Heartland.

840,000 of tar sands crude spilled into Michigan's Kalamazoo River last year

While the Yellowstone River is still being cleaned after a 42,000 gallon ExxonMobil pipeline spill earlier this month and on the year anniversary of a 840,000 gallon Enbridge pipeline spill into the Kalamazoo River, which is still closed due to the contamination, the House of Representatives will vote to expedite the next oil disaster.

Introduced by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), H.R. 1938 directs the President to expedite the permitting and make a final decision by this November on TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This pipeline is a bad bet for America for a lot of reasons, including the fact that TransCanada actually told the Canadian government it would increase our nation’s fuel bill by $4 billion per year. But we need look no further than the clockwork contamination of America’s lands and waters by tar sands pipelines to see that rushing this pipeline is irresponsible.

Here are 10 reasons why – based on safety – Congress should not rush Keystone XL:

1. TransCanada’s brand new Keystone tar sands pipeline has spilled 12 times in 12 months.
2. The toxic chemicals that will flow through Keystone XL haven’t been disclosed to emergency first responders.
3. Keystone XL’s spill frequency and worst-case scenario spill have been seriously underestimated.
4. TransCanada is strong-arming American farmers opposed to Keystone XL’s route through the Ogallala Aquifer.
5. Existing pipeline safety standards are failing to protect public health and the environment.
6. Regulators have said that tar sands may cause more “wear and tear” on pipelines.
7. Tar sands were implicated in all the worst pipeline spills in the U.S. and Canada over the last year.
8. Pending legislation in the House and Senate acknowledge that tar sands pipelines may be risky.
9. Michigan’s Kalamazoo River is still contaminated from a tar sands pipeline spill a year ago.
10. Keystone XL’s environmental review has taken so long because it’s been flawed by bias.

Congressional testimony of Randy Thompson, Nebraskan farmer and rancher:

“TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline, which crosses the eastern part of our state, has been in operation for less than a year and has already had twelve confirmed leaks. The latest of which spewed a geyser of chemical laden tar sands sixty feet into the air. In only a few minutes, it discharged nearly twenty thousand gallons into the surrounding area. How can we have confidence that this won’t happen on our property?”

1. TransCanada’s brand new Keystone tar sands pipeline has spilled 12 times in 12 months.

Keystone is the newest pipeline on record to have been deemed a threat to life, property and the environment by regulators. After a 16,800 gallon spill on May 7 in North Dakota followed by another spill on May 29 in Kansas, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued TransCanada a corrective action order, temporarily shutting down the pipeline. This order is still in effect and TransCanada is still complying with its requirements.

2. The toxic chemicals that will flow through Keystone XL haven’t been disclosed to emergency first responders.

Tar sands crude is thicker, more corrosive, and more abrasive than conventional crude, so it has to be mixed with chemical diluents, then pumped at high pressures and temperatures to make it flow through a pipeline. The State Department’s environmental review of Keystone XL hasn’t analyzed what’s in these mixtures, claiming it’s “proprietary information.” The Environmental Protection Agency critiqued this, saying that such analysis is “important to establish the potential health and environmental impacts of any spilled oil, and responder/worker safety, and to develop response strategies.” The Yellowstone and Kalamazoo River spills demonstrate why this is important. In both cases, confusion ensued about how to respond because no one knew what chemicals were spilled.

3. Keystone XL spill frequency and worst-case scenario spill have been seriously underestimated.

This is according to an independent analysis by Dr. John Stansbury, a professor of water resources engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He estimated that Keystone XL would have 91 spills of more than 50 barrels over 50 years. TransCanada estimated it would have 11. Stansbury also estimated that the worst-case spill into the Missouri, Yellowstone and Platte Rivers would be 122,867 , 165,416 , and 140,950 barrels, respectively, resulting in oil plumes extending for hundreds of miles. The worst-case spill for a subsurface release to groundwater in the Sandhills region of Nebraska would be 189,000 barrels.

4. TransCanada is strong-arming American farmers opposed to Keystone XL’s route through the Ogallala Aquifer.

TransCanada is threatening American farmers with eminent domain even after Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) asked them not to. Farmers are concerned about the proposed route for Keystone XL, which passes right through the Nebraska Sandhills where the sandy soils are saturated by the Ogallala Aquifer at or near the surface level. So the pipeline would have to be laid directly into the aquifer, which provides irrigation water for much of America’s breadbasket and drinking water for millions of people. Two hydrologists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have made the case that their state’s fragile Sandhills is particularly vulnerable to a pipeline spill.

5. Existing pipeline safety standards are failing to protect public health and the environment.

National Wildlife Federation’s 2010 report, “Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit,” documents that oil disasters are tragically all too common. From 2000 to 2009, pipeline accidents accounted for 161 fatalities and 576 injuries in the United States. Since 2009, pipeline accidents haven’t fared better. According to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, since January 2010, pipelines have spilled more than 2.3 million gallons of oil and caused $46 million dollars in damage to private property and the environment. The ExxonMobil pipeline spill into the Yellowstone River exemplifies this. Although a recent inspection by regulators revealed anomolies in the pipeline, it was allowed to continue operation, leading to the spill.

Senator Max Baucus of Montana addressed Ms. Cynthia Quarterman, Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, during a hearing on the Yellowstone River spill: “To be honest, ma’am, it sounds like you’re not really on top of this.”

6. Regulators have said that tar sands may cause more “wear and tear” on pipelines.

About two weeks after the Yellowstone River spill, it came to light that ExxonMobil’s pipeline routinely carried tar sands crude. This surprised Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Montana Department of Environmental Quality officials. In response to this development, a representative of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said, “Tar sands crude may also cause more wear and tear on pipes because of its chemical makeup, including corrosive and abrasive agents…Federal inspectors were trying to determine if transport of tar sands crude could have triggered internal corrosion that may have played a role in the rupture.”

7. Tar sands were implicated in all the worst pipeline spills in the U.S. and Canada over the last year.

Last year, an Enbridge pipeline spilled 840,000 gallons of tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River. In April of this year, the Rainbow pipeline in Canada ruptured and spilled over a million gallons of crude – the largest spill in Canada in 36 years. The Rainbow pipeline carries tar sands crude. The ExxonMobil pipeline that spilled 42,000 gallons into the Yellowstone River carries tar sands crude. TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline that leaked 12 times in a year carries tar sands crude. Is this merely coincidence? Probably not. If tar sands crude causes more wear and tear on pipelines, more spills would be expected.

8. Pending legislation in the House and Senate acknowledge that tar sands pipelines may be risky.

In May, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee passed the Pipeline Transportation Safety Improvement Act of 2011 (S. 275) that, among other things, calls on the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to conduct a tar sands pipeline safety study. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is now considering draft pipeline safety legislation that also calls for a tar sands pipeline safety study. While this is a step in the right direction, the study should be done before any more tar sands pipelines are built.

9. Michigan’s Kalamazoo River is still contaminated from a tar sands pipeline spill a year ago.

Not only does tar sands crude cause more wear and tear on pipelines than conventional oil, it’s also much harder to clean up when it spills. Unlike conventional crude oil, which floats on water and can be skimmed off when it spills, tar sands crude sinks. The Environmental Protection Agency recently reported the results from its assessment of the river a year after the spill. The river is in a much worse condition than anyone expected due to the tar sands crude sinking to the bottom of the riverbed. The Agency identified over 200 acres of submerged crude that has spread, unseen, throughout 40 miles of waterway. The river will remain closed through the summer.

Toby Cull, who lives near the Kalamazoo River told the Detroit News: “That’s the biggest thing Enbridge can’t put a price on — what they’ve done to our daily lives.” Cull estimated that 17 of his neighbors moved due to the spill.

10. Keystone XL’s environmental review has taken so long because it’s been flawed by bias.

As uncovered by the LA Times, TransCanada is one of the biggest clients of Entrix, the consultant that the State Department hired to do the environmental review for Keystone XL. This raises serious questions about conflict of interest, especially considering that, as the New York Times points out, the State Department has now come out with two flawed environmental impact statements for the pipeline. Had the State Department focused on evaluating the project on its merits, the environmental review would be done by now. The State Department still has a chance to get it right, but not if rushed by Congress.

For these 10 reasons, the House of Representatives should abandon consideration of H.R. 1938 to rush the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and focus on strengthening or nation’s pipeline safety standards to protect public health and the environment.

Help Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline

Help stop the Keystone XL pipeline from threatening sandhill cranes and other wildlife! Urge President Obama and the U.S. State Department to keep dangerous tar sands oil pipelines out of America’s Heartland.

The pipeline that burst during the Enbridge tar sands oil spill in Michigan - July 2010

No study has been done nor regulations developed for tar sands pipelines, and pipeline safety regulators have not been involved in the environmental review for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This is according to testimony of Ms. Cynthia Quarterman, Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), before Congress during a hearing on pipeline safety last month. We need look no further than Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, which is still being cleaned up a year after an Enbridge pipeline spilled nearly a million gallons of tar sands crude, to know it’s long overdue.

Then today, in the wake of the disastrous 42,000 gallon spill into Montana’s Yellowstone River from ExxonMobile’s Silvertip Pipeline, which may have carried tar sands crude, seven senators raised new safety concerns about Keystone XL. In a letter to Secretary Clinton, they cited the 12 spills from TransCanada’s year-old Keystone tar sands pipeline and asked whether the State Department will work with PHMSA on Keystone XL’s environmental review for before finalizing it. They also asked whether the State Department would address EPA’s concerns about the chemicals that would be mixed with the viscous tar sands crude to make it flow through the pipeline, as well as Nebraskan farmers and ranchers’ concerns that TransCanada chose the worst possible route through Ogallala Aquifer. With all the recent spills putting pipeline safety higher on the list of congressional priorities, the senators’ scrutiny of Keystone XL is timely.

“The existing Keystone pipeline has been in operation for less than one year and has spilled 12 times, including spills of 400 barrels of crude in North Dakota on May 7, and 10 barrels of crude in Kansas on May 29.  The May spills resulted in the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issuing a Corrective Action Order to TransCanada, finding that “the continued operation of the pipeline without corrective measures would be hazardous to life, property and the environment.” These spills are troubling, as the Keystone XL pipeline will have similar characteristics, and underscore the need for careful assessment of both the spill risks and route of Keystone XL.”

Oil in Montana's Yellowstone River (NWF's Alexis Bonogofsky)

Among those scrutinizing Keystone XL is Senator Lautenberg, the chair of the Senate subcommittee with jurisdiction over pipeline safety. In May, the full Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee passed his Pipeline Transportation Safety Improvement Act of 2011 (S. 275) that, among other things, calls on PHMSA to conduct a tar sands pipeline safety study. There is now interest in moving this legislation on a fast track to the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering a draft pipeline safety bill, also calling for a tar sands pipeline safety study. This is a step in the right direction. However, the House should abandon consideration of Congressman Terry’s bill to expedite Keystone XL’s permitting process, echo the concerns raised by the senators, and focus on enacting pipeline safety legislation to protect public health and the environment.

Please take a moment right now to ask President Obama to say no to Keystone XL.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard, Deepwater Horizon response.

If there is one lesson we should have learned over the year-to-the-day since the BP disaster in the Gulf, it’s that oil companies cannot be trusted on safety and the U.S. government cannot be trusted to hold them accountable.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the State Department’s follow-up environmental assessment for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, released last Friday, is about as inadequate as the first one.

Even though the new assessment found that tar sands are much more polluting than other forms of oil used in the U.S., the State Department still came to the same conclusion as in the first assessment that the project would result in limited environmental impacts. Something isn’t adding up.

The new assessment attempts to appease the concerns of landowners, farmers, local elected officials, members of Congress, consulting federal agencies, environmental groups, and others. But the State Department merely adds a lot of ink without actually addressing the concerns.

I’d hazard to guess that this is because addressing these concerns adequately would take more time and the State Department wants this off their desks so they can stop dealing with TransCanada and others pressuring them to rubber stamp the project.

An editorial that ran in the Nebraska Lincoln Journal Star today got it right:

“The draft supplemental environmental impact statement released last week by the State Department on the Keystone XL Pipeline is a superficial affirmation of its earlier work…In fact, the statement occasionally seems more concerned about TransCanada’s profit margin than Nebraska’s natural resources.”

Although the new assessment has many inadequacies, the two sections that probably deserved the most attention – pipeline route and pipeline safety – still fell far short.

Pipeline Route

Nebraska Senators Nelson and Johanns, local elected officials, landowners, and farmers have repeatedly asked for an assessment of alternative routes for the pipeline to avoid the Nebraska Sandhills region where the Ogallala Aquifer saturates the sandy soil at the surface. These stakeholders worry about a pipeline spill contaminating this precious source of drinking water for two million people and irrigation for much of America’s breadbasket.

Senator Johanns has even said that there couldn’t be a worse route through Nebraska and maybe the entire country. Instead of the heeding these words of caution and assessing reasonable alternative routes, the State Department said avoidance of the Sandhills wasn’t a good enough reason to look at alternatives, then took a cursory look at some unreasonable alternatives and dismissed them.

Aerial shot of Alberta tar sands taken during NWF flyover

Pipeline Safety

There is considerable evidence that tar sands pipelines pose serious safety risks, which haven’t been assessed by the industry or the regulators. Raw tar sands crude oil is thicker and more corrosive than conventional crude oil, so it has to be mixed with liquid natural gas, then pumped at high pressures and temperatures to make it flow through a pipeline. A tar sands pipeline spilled nearly one million gallons into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River last year. Some of the thick oil is still at the bottom of the river.

The State Department should have allowed the Pipeline Safety Administration the time to do an assessment of these risks. If the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline gets built without this, it will be a dangerous experiment.

Does any of this sound familiar?

The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling concluded:

“Regulators, however, failed to keep pace with the industrial expansion and new technology–often because of industry’s resistance to more effective oversight. The result was a serious, and ultimately inexcusable, shortfall in supervision of offshore drilling that played out in the Macondo well blowout and the catastrophic oil spill that followed.”

The State Department should pay attention to the lessons of the BP oil disaster so that Secretary Clinton doesn’t give a thumbs up to the next oil disaster. It would be a shame if this dangerous and unnecessary project came to be known as Hillary Clinton’s Pipeline.

Take action to stop this tar sands pipeline by clicking here.

Aerial shot of Alberta tar sands taken during NWF flyover

On January 25, TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha told the AP that a $3-a-barrel increase is expected for the price of Canadian heavy crude oil in the Midwest if the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.

Canadian heavy crude oil refers to Alberta tar sands.

Then yesterday, Mr. Cunha told The Globe and Mail, “In no way will this project increase prices on gasoline or the price per barrel.”

Why the flip-flop?

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter yesterday to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz, asking for an investigation into whether seven Canadian oil companies have illegal agreements to use the Keystone XL pipeline to drive up oil prices in the Midwest.

“It has been brought to my attention that documents and testimony indicate that at least seven Canadian oil shippers have agreed to incur increased near-term shipping costs on the new pipeline in order to impact market supply in the existing markets so as to drive up the overall price of their product for U.S. refiners,” Senator Wyden said in the letter. “According to TransCanada, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline can be used by Canadian oil shippers to add up to $4 billion to U.S. fuel costs.”

Senator Wyden has a track record of success in catching oil companies red-handed manipulating markets to increase their profits. Everyone knows their profits soar when oil prices go up, but rarely do we get an inside look at how they actually make it happen.

The State Department should consider waiting to start the next round of public review for the project until the FTC has had a chance to look into this. Americans deserve protection from oil companies that seem bent on emptying our pockets to fatten their bottom lines.

TransCanada has some explaining to do. It doesn’t pass the laugh test to say that Keystone XL won’t increase oil prices now, after the company’s own previous statements, documents, and testimony say otherwise.

Take action to stop this tar sands pipeline by clicking here.