The debate over a contentious oil sands pipeline from Alberta to Texas could now pit a powerful lobby group against America’s lead environmental agency. And the future of U.S. energy policy could be at stake.
“We certainly intend to respond formally to what we believe was a mistaken action,” Tom Corcoran, executive director of the Centre for North American Energy Security, told the Tyee Friday.
Corcoran’s comments came after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) questioned plans to build a $7 billion pipeline – TransCanada’s Keystone XL – from Alberta’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.
Extracting fuel from the oil sands, then refining it, creates 82 percent more carbon emissions than conventional oil, the EPA estimated.
Those concerns filled a recent letter to the Department of State, which must decide whether to approve the pipeline. The EPA is calling for a broader environmental impact study.
Former Republican congressman Corcoran, whose lobby group includes some of the world’s biggest oil companies as members, is still weighing options. He called the EPA’s action “unusual” and questioned whether “political involvement” played a role.
“Our general counsel is preparing a reply,” he said. Asked what form that reply would take, he replied, “That is a decision which we will make when we find out exactly what was done and what might be the motivation.”
The debate over Keystone XL must focus only on direct environmental impacts, Corcoran said.
Greenhouse gases released from oil sands operations aren’t a relevant issue in the current debate, he said.
“What the Secretary of State has to do relates to the specific project itself, the pipeline,” he said. “The law does not require a full environmental impact statement for some side aspect related to the production of oil sands fuel.”
If approved, TransCanada’s $7 billion Keystone XL could ship 510,000 barrels of oil per day to the United States.
Proponents believe American prosperity depends on easy access to Alberta’s oil, the world’s second largest known reserves.
Detractors, which include influential congressman Henry Waxman, argue the project will increase U.S. addiction to high-carbon fossil fuels.
Geoff Dembicki reports for the Tyee.
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Fiat lux
1 year ago
Wealth can not be created,
Wealth can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and the future.
Present and future generations are and will be paying a heavy price for today's "wealth creating activities, licenced by an economic/monetary system based on imaginary capital "created" from the air and fraudulent accounting without any debit/liability columns.
The world was a much healthier and happier place before these criminal idiots took control.
Ed Deak.
G West
1 year ago
Tar Sands
Succumbing to the temptation to use a Madison Avenue term like 'oil sands' instead of the more descriptive and accurate term Tar Sands - while the man who wrote the book about them is the writer in residence at Tyee must make for interesting conversations at coffee...
Somehow, a paragraph like this:
Extracting fuel from the "oil sands", then combusting it in a vehicle engine, creates 82 percent more carbon emissions than conventional oil, the EPA estimated.
Loses half its punch when the author doesn't use the appropriate label.
As George Orwell puts it:
But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
Corcoran and Sweet and their political masters in Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa are perfectly happy with that fact.
Tar Sands deserve to labelled honestly.
Again, quoting Orwell:
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."