Environmentalists protest proposed Canada to Texas oil pipeline

CBS/istockphoto.com

With just weeks to go before the Obama administration makes a key determination on the environmental impact of a planned massive oil pipeline linking Canada to Texas, protestors are planning a high-profile "sit-in" in front of the White House to block the project.

The environmentalists are planning to begin two weeks of sit ins at the White House Saturday to protest what they cast as "the largest carbon bomb in North America" - a planned 1,700 mile underground oil pipeline linking the tar sands fields of northern Alberta to oil refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

About 2,000 people total - taking shifts so that there are between 75 and 100 people present every day - are planning to participate in the protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Large American oil companies and their allies in Congress, as well as the Canadian government, have been pressuring the Obama administration to approve the $7 billion, 36-inch pipeline. According to National Journal, Keystone XL would double the amount of oil being shipped through TransCanada pipelines, from 591,000 barrels to 1.3 million barrels each day. The company already operates underground pipelines taking oil from Alberta to Illinois and Oklahoma. 

The U.S. State Department - which has jurisdiction because the pipeline would cross an international border - has said it will decide whether to approve the pipleine by the end of 2011. The project has been under consideration for nearly three years.

Backers of Keystone XL say it will increase America's domestic oil production with the help of a friendly ally and create 20,000 construction jobs in the process. Organized labor has teamed up with the oil industry to back the pipeline, and both have been pressuring the Obama administration for approval. In a sign of their influence, the House last month voted 279-147 to force the administration to make a decision about the pipeline by November 1. While the bill is not likely to advance in the Democrat-led Senate, it signaled the strength of the lobbying push in favor of the project.

"Today, with the U.S. economy still struggling, nothing is more important than jobs," Cindy Schild, the petroleum institutes's refining issues manager, told the Mercury News. "And construction of the pipeline would mean massive numbers of them." 

Critics of the pipeline - who include celebrities like Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, actor Mark Ruffalo and NASA climatologist James Hansen, as well as some landowners and Native American leaders - say it will have a hugely negative impact on the environment. They also say it will not lower oil prices because the international market will simply adjust supply to account for increased production. 

The pipeline would carry a tar-like form of crude oil called "diluted bitumen" across a wide swath of the country, through farms and wilderness, with spills possible in sensitive areas like Nebraska's Sand Hills, the Yellowstone River and the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground reservoir that supplies two million Americans in the Midwest with water.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor John Stansbury said in July the pipeline would likely experience 91 spills of more than 50 barrels of oil in its first 50 years. TransCanada, he said, has claimed there would only be 11 such spills in its presentations to American regulators.

Stansbury also said the company has badly underestimated how long it would take to shut down the pipeline in the event of a spill. A pipeline operated by TransCanada has already seen multiple spills, most recently in North Dakota and Kansas, and was shut down earlier this year. A spill last July in Michigan released 800,000 gallons of bitumen into the Kalamazoo River.

Critics note that turning tar sand into oil is far more energy intensive than refining conventional oil and point out that the process has already resulted in the creation of more than 60 miles of toxic holding ponds that kill birds and pollute waterways. They also complain that extracting the bitumen, which is done with steam or hot water and then produced by burning natural gas, will mean destroying significant portions of Alberta's boreal forest. Tar sand oil results in significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil.

Earlier this month, 20 climate scientists, including Hansen, sent an open letter to President Obama urging him to block the pipeline. 

"The tar sands are a huge pool of carbon, but one that does not make sense to exploit," they wrote. "It takes a lot of energy to extract and refine this resource into useable fuel, and the mining is environmentally destructive. Adding this on top of conventional fossil fuels will leave our children and grandchildren a climate system with consequences that are out of their control. It makes no sense to build a pipeline system that would practically guarantee extensive exploitation of this resource."

Secretary of Hillary Clinton had said she was "inclined" to support the project, but she has taken a more measured stance as the debate has continued. The Environmental Protection Agency and a group of House Democrats have suggested that the State Department, in its assessments of the environmental impact of the project, is understating the risks. 

Among the opponents of the project have been some senators in the states where the pipeline would be built, including Nebraska Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson. While the oil industry lobbies heavily for the project, the Obama administration is facing competing pressure from core constituencies - environmentalists and organized labor - that are on opposite sides of the issue.

The State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs is expected to release its final environmental impact statement on the pipeline by the end of the month. A decision will then be made following a 30-day period for public comment and a 90-day review period in which federal agencies provide their input.

[zapshouse]

A lot of people cannot afford solar, it should be affordable by anyone that needs it. We are sooo concerned about energy consumption, what a joke, make solar affordable.
As for people thinking Obama is doing a good job, how do you like the $5.00 a gallon of gas you/me are going to be paying. If you voted for him I hope you end up walking EVERYWHERE. There is no reason we can't get oil from Canada. The lazy, hippie, have nothing else to do but make peoples lives miserable environmentalist can croak. You don't like logging, be you already have a home don't you, what is is built from? Ever think of what you wipe you azz with? ITS A PAPER PRODUCT. You have your home so **** on anyone else that wants a home built out of wood. I hope you environmentalist have kids....they are going to pay through the nose, now that is funny.

[flightchic]

I have absolutely no idea why oil has to be piped across the nation to Texas. I don't buy the warm water refinery theory. Maybe no one knows but our air in Houston has been in severe non-attainment for years. I believe that honor may extend to Dallas as well. This last summer the state that produces the largest amount of greenhouse gas in the nation was on fire as a huge high pressure sat it place where it was fueled by those gases. This man-made phenomena went on for about 5 months. Our Texas refineries have been told to become environmentally compliant but didn't want to spend the money. Having had 40 years to think about it they now blame the current economy for their lack of compliance.

If another state or country wants oil and is comfortable poisoning people then they are welcome to it. Keep it out of our heartland and keep it out of Texas. Please. Enough is enough.

[GentleDragon]

The fact that Canada is becoming our #1 oil import and we have to get oil from this kind of source (oil embedded muddy tar like sand that has to go through a refining process several times more expensive than cheap crude pumped out of the ground) should tell you that refined oil is becoming more and more expensive because global oil output doesn't have much more cheap oil to give us. Tar Sands is like an alcoholic going into a bar, the taps have gone dry, so he starts sucking beer out of carpet.Look up the concept of Peak Oil, it's getting more expensive to extract and once it becomes too expensive, there will be shock in demand and oil price.

[Overruled1]

Besides the environmental impact, why pipe it to Texas?
There must be at least one state closer to make a pipeline much shorter and dangerous.

[NWoods2]

Not because there aren't any refineries in Canada or between the US border and Texas. It is because they need a refinery close to a warm water port. If you think this oil is meant for US consumption, think again.

[Anotheryahoo]

We need this oil Pipeline, we need Solar power, We need Electric cars, we need Nuclear power, we need Thermal power and Hydroelectric ,we need them all to get off mideast Oil. Its that simple and all can be done safely if we want to do it.
Remove the extremist and bought off politicians on both sides and you will see this is the truth.

[myth1958]

The Keystone XL pipeline wouldn't be economically feasible if oil wasn't so precious at the pump right now. It isn't cheap to extract, transport or refine and offers the kind of catastrophic spill scenario that could maim our environment worse than the Gulf blowout or Exxon Valdez incidents. "Today, with the U.S. economy still struggling, nothing is more important than jobs," Cindy Schild, the petroleum institutes's refining issues manager, told the Mercury News. Except maybe the Ogallala Aquifer and the countless rivers and streams it'll cross from Canada to the refineries in Texas. Jobs are important: let's use the billions of a pipeline project to fund solar panel, wind and hydro projects all over. Those jobs don't threaten the water supply of 2 million Americans and might return any investment through renewable energy for many years ahead. No known number of security guards on the planet could defend this monster from attack, either. It stinks from below the ground up.

[Hutterite]

So a couple hundred protesters are going to keep the US dependent on foreign oil? And what about that oil, how is giving money to the Saudis or Nigerians or Venezuelans working out? The oil sands are going to be developed and there are always people who you can find to complain about it. A whole bunch more of us, however, think it's great. We can always improve methods of production and distribution. But we've also made a deal with the petroleum devil, and until we change our habits on a massive scale the oil sands are far superior to most of the alternatives.

[PT100455]

Hey, they've already started Destroying the Oceans & this TransCanada has pipelines in North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas- there has already been spills there bad enough in North Dakota & Kansas to Shut Down earlier this year! Then Michigan had, in July, 800,000 gallons spill into the Kalamazoo River! Is this Really What We Need? More ways to Destroy our Earth & our Health?
Think about it, 1700 miles of pipeline running from Alberta Canada through the midwest to the Texas Gulf Coast Refiners-at a cost of $7Billion!
Yea, let's do that instead of the plan we already started to find other means besides oil! Let's have this pipeline, run through Nebraska's Sand Hills, Yellowstone River, and an underground reservoir that supplies 2Million Americans in Midwest with their water!
If that wasn't enough, Cindy Schild-a (get this) a Petroleum Institutes Refinery Issues Manager (SRSLY?) tells us ".....NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN JOBS...CONSTRUCTION OF THE PIPELINE WOULD MEAN 'MASSIVE' NUMBER'S OF THEM."
'Nothing more IMPORTANT'? How about our Precious Earth that GOD Intrusted Us With? What Happens to ALL these jobs when pipeline is finished?
In this day & age, I don't know about anyone else, but I am Utterly Disturbed & Frightened of the Consequences, the way we keep Destroying Ourselves & the Earth!

[slatep]

TO CONGRESS AND OBAMA: DON'T DO IT.!!!

[michaeljonesx]

BOY, ARE LITERALLY SCARPING THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL IF WE HAVE TO RESORT TO 'DEVELOPING' THIS TAR SAND OIL. TO DIG UP A UNTOUCHED PRISTINE WILDERNESS AND DESTROY IT FOR A FEW MORE BARRELS OF OIL.HOW UNWISE ARE WE? NEVER BLIND GREEDY DUMB ECT ECT.
SORRY KIDS FOR THE MESS WE ARE LEAVING ALL OF YOU!