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Hillary Clinton ‘supportive’ of Alberta oil imports, wavers on Keystone XL pipeline
News Articles Featured | Montreal Gazette | March 02, 2011
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is “generally supportive” of increasing American oil imports from Canada, but sidestepped questions Wednesday about whether she backs a controversial new oilsands pipeline from Alberta to Texas.
Clinton, testifying before the Senate appropriations committee, said it would be improper for her to take sides in the debate over Calgary-based TransCanada’s Keystone XL project because her department makes the decision on whether to grant a permit for its construction.
“Since my department bears the ultimate responsibility for making a recommendation on the pipeline, I am not able to express an opinion,” said Clinton.
Her remarks came in response to questions from South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, an prominent oilsands booster who visited Alberta’s Fort McMurray last September.
“I’ve been told the second-largest known deposit of oil is in the oilsands in Canada, and that it’s equal to or greater than Saudi Arabia and Iran — and there’s a problem with the pipeline,” Graham said.
When Clinton declined to offer a view on Keystone XL, Graham asked if she was “generally supportive of receiving more oil from Canada and less from the Mid-East?”
Replied Clinton: “I am generally supportive of receiving more oil from Canada. I am absolutely supportive of us doing more in energy efficiency and renewables and looking for clean ways to use our own resources as well.”
The Keystone XL project has been in limbo since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns about greenhouse gas emissions associated with oilsands production and safety contingencies in the event of a spill along the pipeline’s route.
The State Department has the authority to grant a presidential permit because the 3,200-kilometre pipeline would cross an international border. It is now weighing whether to conduct a supplemental environmental impact study, with a decision on the next step expected as early as this spring.
The delay, however, is beginning to trouble the Alberta government.
“What Alberta would like to see is that we actually see some action from the U.S. administration in terms of moving forward on the approvals for the Keystone pipeline,” the province’s energy minister, Ron Liepert, said Wednesday.
“I just wish they would move on it,” added Liepert, who hadn’t heard Clinton’s remarks.
The Keystone XL project is vital for Alberta because “we need the export capacity,” Liepert said.
“We’re going to be landlocked in bitumen in this province if we don’t have the ability to get it out of the province.”
Clinton angered environmental groups last October when she told an audience in San Francisco that the State Department was “inclined to” grant a permit for the pipeline. Since then, senior administration officials have remained silent on the matter.
President Barack Obama said nothing about the pipeline during a news conference last month at the White House with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who confirmed he personally lobbied for the project.
Republicans in Congress have become increasingly vocal in their support of the Keystone XL line, arguing it is vital to America’s energy security in light of the recent turmoil in Libya and Egypt.
During a Senate foreign relations committee hearing earlier Wednesday, Republican Senator Richard Lugar told Clinton the crisis in Libya highlights the need for the U.S. to expand its imports of oil from Canada.
“Volatile oil prices are a threat to United States’ economic recovery and dependence on foreign oil limits our foreign policy choices,” said Lugar, the committee’s ranking Republican. “The State Department must work to diversify supply routes and boost our energy trade with reliable and transparent allies such as Canada in place of shaky and sometimes hostile suppliers.”
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said Wednesday the instability in the Middle East and North Africa “is a good reminder to the world that Alberta’s oil is not only plentiful, but it’s produced in a very stable, secure country.”
U.S. environmental groups which have waged an intense campaign against Keystone XL took heart from Clinton’s noncommittal stance on the pipeline.
“We are glad to see that Secretary Clinton is not pre-judging the permitting process for the Keystone XL tarsands pipeline, but is making clear her support for doing more in energy efficiency and renewables,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the international program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Tagged with: keystone xl, hillary clinton
