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Oilsands cloud ‘clean energy agenda’ of Harper, Obama meeting
News Articles Featured | Vancouver Sun | February 04, 2011
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WASHINGTON — In advance of Friday’s White House huddle between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, officials from both countries have touted their leaders’ plan to advance the clean energy agenda they first launched two years ago in Ottawa.
But the elephant in the Oval Office could be the “dirty energy” from Alberta oilsands that has — to the dismay of Canadian industry and government — become a subject of unrelenting, high-profile debate in Congress and throughout the Obama administration in recent weeks.
Officials from the Canadian and U.S. energy sectors said Thursday they want Harper to press the case for approval of Calgary-based TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would ship oilsands crude from Hardisty, Alta., to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“I would strongly hope oilsands and the pipeline are on the agenda,” Cindy Schild, refining issues manager for the American Petroleum Institute, said in an interview.
“That oil is going to go somewhere, and it just seems to make the most sense to keep it in North America.”
The North American oil industry and environmental movement have been on tenterhooks as they await a decision by the U.S. State Department on whether to grant a “presidential permit” for construction of the $7-billion Keystone XL.
The pipeline has been in limbo since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency described a draft environmental study of the project as “inadequate” — raising concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and the potential threat to sensitive ecosystems of a spill.
The U.S. State Department is now weighing whether to conduct a supplemental eco-study providing more detail on Keystone’s emergency response plans, the chemical composition of the oilsands bitumen and potential damage to groundwater from pipeline leaks or spills.
The project has divided members of the U.S. Congress and, to a certain extent, pitted officials at the U.S. State Department and the EPA against each other. The pipeline, which would have a capacity of more than 500,000 barrels per day, has led to warring national ad campaigns by TransCanada and environmentalists, whose TV spots denounce “dirty oil” from Alberta.
But the big question for proponents and opponents of the pipeline is where Obama — who put clean energy innovation at the centre of last week’s State of the Union address — stands on growing American reliance on oilsands.
“If you were to bet on it, Keystone might go ahead,” says Danielle Droitsch, U.S. policy director for the Calgary-based Pembina Institute.
“But the reality is that the oilsands is kind of inconsistent with where the United States is heading in terms of a clean-energy economy,” said Droitsch, a vocal critic of the Keystone XL project. “What they have to grapple with is this issue of, how do we take oilsands and also call ourselves a leader in clean energy and climate? It’s not a simple answer.”
A report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy this week painted a mixed picture of the need for the Keystone XL.
The report, by EnSys Energy consultants, said increased U.S. imports of Canadian oilsands crude would “very substantially reduce U.S. dependency on non-Canadian foreign oil, including from the Middle East.” But it also said the pipeline wasn’t vital to ensure supply of Canadian oil meets U.S. demands.
Greg Stringham, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the report should bolster Ottawa’s argument that oilsands and Keystone XL help as “security of supply” for the U.S.
If the prime minister makes his case for oilsands “in a broader energy context, I think that would be enough to push it further in the process,” Stringham said.
“It is important that there be some certainty in the industry around this. I think that is what we are looking for: a signal that the U.S. wants to continue to grow the relationship.”
While Stringham said “there is already a great deal of pipeline capacity” for Canadian oil, “we don’t have very much that goes down to the Gulf Coast” where refineries are looking for heavy oil as supplies from Mexico and Venezuela decline.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last October that she was “inclined” to approve the pipeline.
But she has since come under political pressure from more than four dozen fellow Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate to address environmental concerns. In particular, lawmakers in Nebraska have suggested TransCanada change the route of the pipeline to avoid crossing over the vast Ogallala Aquifer, a major groundwater source for the state’s Great Plains.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Oilsands+development+slippery+topic+Harper+Obama/4225243/story.html#ixzz1D2R8yJtH
Tagged with: keystone xl, transcanada, obama, harper
