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EU makes no decision on 'oil sands' dirty fuel vote

An EU committee has failed to decide on a proposal to label so-called oil sands as worse for climate change than average crude oil.

A spokesman for EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the proposal will now go to the European Council—representatives of the EU’s 27 member countries.

Canada had threatened to take the EU to the World Trade Organization if it singled out oil sands as dirty. But the European Commission contends that science justifies the proposal.

The EU committee vote was 54 for the proposal, 128 against and 128 abstaining. The vote was by qualified majority, a system in which larger countries have more votes than smaller ones, and 255 votes were needed for the committee to approve or reject the proposal.

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