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Chair of Energy and Commerce Committee says tar sands pipeline “step in the wrong direction”
By Liz Barratt-Brown’s
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Read this blog post on the originating site
Read the original post, with links, at the NRDC Switchboard
The Chairman wrote two letters, one a shorter letter to the Secretary, and another to the office receiving input on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the proposed pipeline. The public comment period on the DEIS closed on July 2nd, the same day the Chairman sent his letters.
In his letters, the Chairman stated that the DEIS on the pipeline was seriously flawed, in particular in its failure to fully analyze what the Chairman called “the most significant environmental impact” – the pollution from producing tar sands bitumen by strip mining and drilling Canada’s Boreal forest.
The Keystone XL pipeline would push up to 900,000 barrels a day of gooey bitumen 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas under high pressure, roughly doubling the amount of tar sands oil coming in to the U.S. Keystone XL would be the third dedicated tar sands pipeline, along with the Keystone and Alberta Clipper. These two pipelines were approved in 2008 and 2009.
In his multi-pronged letters, the Chairman made numerous points to underscore his concern that approving the pipeline would undermine the President’s clean energy policy. He stated that the pipeline would:
- Increase the importation of tar sands oil to 3 million barrels a day, which would add global warming pollution equivalent to putting 18 million more cars on the road
- Wipe away up to two-thirds the reduction in pollution from the President’s recently announced fuel efficiency standards for cars by 2020
- Drive massive new investments in energy that is dirtier than what we use now
- Increase the release of global warming pollution through the loss of boreal forest and peatland, as well as through the release of methane from the vast tailings ponds that are created to remove the bitumen from the peat
- Cause other damage “such as destruction of the boreal forest ecosystem, extensive water pollution, air pollution, habitat loss, and effects on species, including migratory birds”
Tagged with: keystone xl, pipeline, secretary of state, nrdc
