It would be a moment of energy security and national security folly to stop this pipeline from being built and operated. The Canadians are the most important and most reliable source of oil we have. They supply large quantities of electricity to us and import electricity from us as well. They are the largest source of our imported natural gas. We also have significant cross-border energy investments with the Canadians on hydrocarbon sources and technologies as well as in alternative energies. Our energy relations with the Canadians are very important. To see how important Canada is to US energy security, please see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Canada/pdf.pdf .

The US and Canada have an important clean energy dialogue: http://events.energetics.com/USCanadaCleanEnergy2010/pdfs/US_Canada_Clean_Energy_Dialogue_2010_Conference_Summary_Report.pdf .

Both countries realize the importance of efficiency gains, smart grids, the nuclear revival, new forms of transport and more. Some of our strongest intellectual cooperative efforts on energy futures can also be found with the Canadians.

The strongest and most reliable economic relations we have are with the Canadians. We have huge amounts of people, goods, services, electronic information, funds and energy sources flowing between our countries each day. Please see http://www.buyusa.gov/canada/en/traderelationsusacanada.html for even more indications of how important Canada is to the US economically and otherwise.

The deepest and most important defense relationship the US has is with Canada. Please see: http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/focus/canada-us-canada-eu/index-eng.asp.

One might also look at: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2089.htm

Our many important relations with Canada also link with our relations with other important allies, trading partners and others.

We will be in need of oil from the Canadians for some time to come. Our oil, gas and electricity trade with the Canadians could prove to be one of the most important linkages for both of our countries as we face new energy challenges. The US transition from oil and gas to a new energy future for the US will likely also include Canada in many ways.

President Obama sees the problems with our dependence on oil, but he also sees the importance of reason and strategic planning to make sure that our energy supplies remain secure in the coming difficult transitions that we will face.

The President will likely approve the pipeline, but he might also be advised to also set up even deeper cooperation with Canada on new energy futures and new ways of solving some of the many very complex problems associated with the energy-environment-economy-water-food-human security nexus.

We need to be reasonable and think of the need for Canada’s oil in the short to medium runs, but also we need to think down the line in the longer runs when both of our countries will need to find an energy future that could be very different from today.

Pipeline Will Strengthen Energy, Economic Security

The Keystone XL pipeline project represents a significant opportunity to strengthen our nation’s energy and economic security. Canada is currently the largest source of petroleum imports to the United States, providing nearly 2 million barrels of oil per day. The proposed Keystone pipeline expansion would allow us to increase those imports from our North American ally by more than 500,000 barrels per day – decreasing our nation’s reliance on imported oil from unstable regions of the world.

In addition to providing safe, secure, reliable supplies of crude oil to refiners in the Gulf Coast region, the Keystone XL project will create jobs and benefit communities through increased business activity and tax revenues. Bringing Canadian oil to the United States to be manufactured into finished products at refineries and petrochemical plants has the potential to pump billions of dollars into our economy and support thousands of American jobs.

Environmental activists, who seem opposed to most forms of abundant, reliable and efficient energy supplies, are pressuring the Obama administration to halt the proposed Keystone pipeline expansion in its tracks. Aside from the negative security and economic consequences this would have, opponents of the Keystone project – and advocates of policies such as a nationwide low-carbon fuel standard – fail to acknowledge the potential environmental impacts of reducing our access to Canadian crude.

If the United States doesn’t want Canadian oil, China and other nations across the Pacific will be more than happy to buy it. That would require shipping those oil supplies across the ocean, and would force the United States to ship in more oil from other parts of the world. A recent study by the Barr Engineering Company found that this “shuffling” of crude supplies would result in a significant increase in overall greenhouse gas emissions. In essence, crude shuffling would mean more oil tankers using more energy to transport greater quantities of crude oil over longer distances.

Our nation’s energy portfolio should be as broad and diverse as possible, fully utilizing the abundance of resources and technologies available. As we continue to work toward the further development of supplemental and alternative energy sources, however, it’s clear that the United States – and the rest of the world – will rely on petroleum resources for decades to come.

The question our nation faces, then, is not whether we will continue to use oil. The question is: Do we take steps to strengthen our nation’s security by meeting more of our energy needs through a strategic ally and partner, or do we increase our dependence on energy resources from unstable – and potentially unfriendly – regions of the world? By approving the Keystone XL pipeline project, the Obama administration has an opportunity to put America’s security, economy, and consumers first.

Building a speculative seven billion dollar dirty oil pipeline from and to North America’s two oil gluttons – Alberta and Texas – is eerily similar to the physiological symptoms that grip a heroin addict trying to kick the habit. You can literally sense the craving, restlessness, insomnia, and anxiety of these oil executives who would seemingly have no purpose if unable to suck oil out of the ground and continue reaping obscene profits at the expense of the public interest. Even putting aside the multiple better uses for seven billion dollars (did someone say “solar?”), this ill-conceived, harmful and non-transparent 1700 mile pipeline -- across some of America’s most treasured prairie landscapes -- possesses two major flaws that strongly militate against the United States allowing it to proceed: 1) It would incapacitate the lungs of North America, the great Boreal Forest, with a bitumen extraction process that would destroy an area the size of Florida; 2) It would take us in the opposite direction of where scientists tell us we need to go in order to stabilize our planet’s climate with a standard of at least 350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We should not let a foreign corporation continue an American addiction to oil. Alternatives exist. The Tar Sands Pipeline is a false choice perpetrated by the industry that brought us the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Just say no.

Let’s be clear about our choices. We can build the Keystone pipeline and with it provide access to the largest supply of oil in the Western Hemisphere or get that oil elsewhere. Energy realists, including the U.S. Department of Energy, understand oil will remain critical to helping meet U.S. energy needs for decades, even with more alternative energy sources and a boost in energy efficiency. The only question is, where will we get the oil we know America’s consumers will be demanding?

We can and should produce more oil at home, but we also can help meet demand and enhance our energy security by importing more oil from Canada’s oil sands. Canada is already our leading foreign supplier of crude oil and natural gas and has proven oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia. No oil source outside our own borders is more secure or geographically convenient than Canada.

The economic benefits of another pipeline linking us to Canada’s oil sands would be huge, including massive numbers of new U.S. jobs. According to an independent study from the Perryman Group, the Keystone XL expansion would create 118,000 construction-related jobs, 250,000 permanent jobs, more than $20 billion in new spending for the U.S. economy, and more than $586 million in state and local taxes. Over the next five years, oil sands development in Canada would result in an additional 343,000 jobs in the United States and an increase in crude oil production of about half a million barrels per day. These benefits are in addition to the tens of thousands of jobs and boost in revenues already delivered as a result of importing oil from Canada’s oil sands.

Environmental impacts from oil sands development and transportation are being well managed and minimized. Pipelines are the most economical and environmentally friendly way to move energy liquids over long distances, and the Keystone pipeline will be made with the most modern materials, using the most up-to-date construction practices. Oil sands producers comply with strict environmental rules requiring the return of all developed land to its natural state. Energy and water use have grown steadily more efficient. And, contrary to claims from opponents of oil sands development, the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from that oil are comparable to those from other crude oils refined in the United States.

Tar sands oil extraction is one of the most environmentally damaging ways to produce oil. These operations in Canada’s boreal forest have already caused irreversible damage to the ecosystem, and construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline would only encourage further oil production and environmental damage.

Not only does tar sands oil extraction involve clear cutting and strip mining vast areas, but it also requires large amounts of energy and water. Depending on the extraction method, it may take 2.5 to 4 units of water to produce one unit of crude oil. Not all of this water can be reused, and some 220 billion gallons of toxic fine tailings are stored in 42,000 acres of tailing ponds, with the potential to harm birds and other wildlife.

Producing oil from tar sands requires much more energy and results in greater greenhouse gas emissions than producing conventional oil does. From well to tank, oil produced from tar sands emits an EPA-estimated 82% more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. Tar sands oil also requires significant energy input in relation to the energy recovered – about one unit of input to 5-6 units of oil extracted. This input comes from natural gas, creating more greenhouse gas problems.

For the United States, which has pledged to cut its carbon footprint and move toward cleaner energy, the proposed pipeline would be a step backward. It would increase our dependence on a source of high-carbon fossil fuels. Upgrading and refining the tar sands bitumen would increase domestic emissions. If the pipeline is approved, the U.S. would be actively encouraging environmentally devastating tar sands oil production – as well as risking our environment to a potentially leaky pipeline.

President Obama must stop the Keystone XL pipeline. This year we have seen the consequences of our fossil fuel addiction in one disaster after another. We need to break this addiction, not build a pipeline for the dirtiest oil available.

The Keystone XL pipeline would pump tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast of Texas, putting people and the environment at risk in both countries. The tar sands mines of Alberta have become internationally infamous as the world’s largest, dirtiest project. The toxic wasteland that Big Oil is leaving behind is leaching carcinogenic byproducts into the watershed; communities downstream have become cancer hotspots. This pipeline will double American imports of tar sands oil and allow this destruction to expand.

The pipeline will also bring pollution and safety concerns to America. It will cross 71 rivers and streams and the Ogalalla Aquifer, which could see the same fate as the Kalamazoo River did two weeks ago, when a tar sands oil pipeline spilled over one million gallons into the river. A recent report from the National Wildlife Federation shows that these events are far from uncommon. In the last decade, there have been 2,554 significant pipeline accidents, leading to 161 fatalities, and 576 injuries.

At its destination in the refineries of Port Arthur, Texas, the pipeline will worsen an environmental justice crisis. The EPA has identified Port Arthur as an environmental justice priority for the federal government, yet this pipeline would increase the mercury and other dangerous air pollutants in the air around Port Arthur. This means more children with asthma and more people with respiratory diseases.

And the truth is, we don’t need this oil. We can reduce our oil use fast enough to never need this pipeline and we have already gotten started. Recent auto efficiency standards will save 50 million gallons of oil per day by 2020, much more than the Keystone XL’s capacity of 38 million gallons per day. Additional measures, like electrifying our rail system, would save an astonishing 50.4 million gallons of fuel each day. Instead of building the Keystone XL pipeline, we should be making strong commitments to more efficient and electric cars, expanding mass transit options to more people, and running our economy on clean, renewable energy. The pipeline brings too much risk for something we don’t need.

These comments were submitted by Anne Woiwode, state director of the Sierra Club's Michigan chapter.

The last three months have seen the worst environmental disaster in US history as 206 million gallons of oil poisoned the gulf coast. A few weeks ago, a massive spill from a Canadian tar sands pipe spilled another million gallons into rivers that feed Lake Michigan, now called the worst oil spill in the Midwest. Meanwhile, the State Department is considering approval for a massive new pipeline designed to carry the world's dirtiest oil from Canada's tar sands across the Midwest, while the public continues to pay the price for rubber-stamping risky industry proposals.

The Keystone XL would run through Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, exposing more communities and fragile freshwater ecosystems to spills like the Kalamazoo river disaster. It would cut directly through the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies water to 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States. The high plains farmland that relies on this aquifer is the breadbasket of America, producing one fifth of all our cattle, corn and wheat.

Thousands of citizens and several federal agencies, notably the EPA, have called on the State Department to carefully consider the impact of this pipeline on American communities and our energy future. As a result, the State Department has delayed its decision on the pipeline, and ordered a new environmental impact study.

Powerful examples of the risks oil pipelines pose to water and wildlife are fresh in the minds of the public, and they are calling for greater consideration of the risks associated with any petroleum project. With a thorough assessment of the devastating environmental and climate impacts of expanding our reliance on the dirtiest fuel on earth, the State Department will have difficulty claiming the Keystone XL is truly in the national interest.

Instead of going to greater and riskier lengths to find oil, like importing the dirtiest oil in the world from Canada, or drilling under miles of ocean, we need to invest in good, clean, American energy that will create jobs and spur the growth of our green economy.
The massive oil spill in Michigan is as ironic as it is tragic- Michigan is perfectly poised to become a leader in the clean energy economy. In less than a year, sixteen new electric vehicle technology plants have opened in the state -- plants that are projected to create 62,000 new jobs over the next decade.

The State Department cannot ensure the future of American prosperity by locking in our addiction to the dirtiest fuel on earth and exposing our greatest freshwater resource to tar sands contamination. The state department must reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and put us on a path to a truly self-sufficient energy future free from reliance on all foreign governments, whether we share a border with them or not.

The Obama Administration should not approve the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. In light of the current failure of Congress to confront climate change and jumpstart the clean energy economy, it is more important than ever that the Obama Administration move America away from dirty and risky fuels.

The news this summer has been dominated by images of the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf – showing us that expanding our reliance on fossil fuels comes at a very high cost. Most recently, the Enbridge oil pipeline rupture in Michigan put lie to the claims of the tar sands oil industry that oil from land-based sources was somehow less risky than oil from deepwater sources.

The fact is that as our conventional oil sources dwindle, we are looking at ever riskier and more difficult to access sources of fossil fuels such as deepwater or tar sands. This is not the clean energy path to which the Obama Administration has committed.

In its comments, EPA specifically questioned the “national security implications of expanding the Nation’s long-term commitment to a relatively high carbon source of oil.” Proponents of the tar sands pipeline use national security arguments to justify its construction. However, EPA is correct in asking whether global warming and continued dependence on oil is not the bigger national security threat.

Since the Gulf oil disaster, there is growing public feeling that oil companies have been defining our energy policy for too long. The State Department is out of step with the growing public sentiment that America needs to move away from our dependence on oil and towards cleaner energy sources.

We have a choice to make: Do we continue to rely on a source of fuel that will keep us from meeting our climate goals? Or do we embrace energy sources that are cleaner from the start? I realize that we are not going to end our dependence on oil overnight, but the last thing we need is a massive investment in expansion of fossil fuels that will take us backward.

It is time we turned to the 21st-century solutions—things like more fuel efficient cars, plug-in hybrids, better public transit, electric rail, and walkable communities—that will get us moving down a cleaner path.

The EPA is asking exactly the right questions about whether this tar sands pipeline is in our best interest as a country. As a country that has made a commitment to clean energy, it is clear to me that the tar sands pipeline is not in our best interest.

The Transcanada Keystone XL pipeline would carry the dirtiest and most expensive oil on earth and should not be built. It would lock the United States into multi-billion dollar investments in high carbon oil infrastructure, just at the moment we are trying to get serious about breaking our oil addiction. For an Administration that is dedicated to getting off oil and combating climate change, the tar sands pipeline is a big step in precisely the wrong direction.

Expanding reliance on Canadian tar sands does not enhance US energy security. Tar sands carry no spare capacity and therefore do not help in times of shortage due to hurricanes, armed conflict, or embargo. Tar sands are the most expensive oil on earth and do not lower prices. In fact, if you’re putting tar sands in your tank, it’s because oil prices are high. And tar sands oil does nothing to break the power of OPEC. OPEC’s control of the world market is forecast to increase, with or without tar sands.

It’s never an easy time to start breaking an addiction. But the best time is now. Denying the Presidential Permit for Keystone KX would be a clear signal from the President that the time has come: no more investment in a dirty oil future. Such a signal to the market would help unleash investment in the alternative energy sources we need.

The Presidential Permit for this pipeline is based on a determination of national interest. It is not in our national interest to double down on oil addiction. There are a few refineries in Texas that need heavy crude for their security of supply, but we do not need this dirty oil for US national security. The permit must be denied.

These comments were provided by Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's International Program.

The United States does not need TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The security, economic, environmental and health costs are too high. Rather than a system for importing fuel into our country, the pipeline is set to become a system for increasing and importing pollution and for putting livelihoods in America’s heartland at risk.

The Canadian pipeline company TransCanada has proposed a 2,000 mile tar sands pipeline that could bring as much as 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of costly and carbon-intense fuel to the U.S. Gulf Coast. This pipeline, called Keystone XL, will lock the United States into a continued dependence on expensive oil and generate a massive expansion of the tar sands oil operations in Canada. These operations have already left a permanent scar on Canada’s Boreal forest. The consumption of water and natural gas, creation of miles of leaking and toxic tailings ponds, and destruction of land and habitat required for tar sands production make the true costs of these operations far too great. The pipeline will carry the raw tar sands oil across the Ogallala Aquifer – the main freshwater source for eight U.S. States from Nebraska to Texas, but livelihoods in danger should there be a leak or accident. The recent rupture of the Enbridge tar sands pipeline in Michigan showed us that pipelines are far from infallible, but rather have leaks and ruptures as part of their normal operating business. Further, the pipeline will carry the raw tar sands oil to the Gulf Coast refineries for upgrading and refining – bringing the higher air and water pollution and global warming pollution emissions of tar sands oil to a region already beleaguered by high levels of asthma, cancer and other illnesses associated with petroleum pollution.

Perhaps most importantly to the bigger picture question of whether the United States should be increasing its reliance on tar sands oil is the fact that tar sands does not fit in a clean energy economy. To meet an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050, significant changes must occur in our transportation sector, which is now responsible for 30 percent of global warming pollution in the United States. Nearly all of these emissions come from the combustion of oil. NRDC analysis shows that by 2050 passenger cars and light trucks—our largest source of transportation emissions—will need to run almost entirely on non-petroleum-based fuels if we are to meet our emissions targets. Additionally, tar sands produce a heavy crude with a higher lifecycle carbon content than many other petroleum sources. If the United States were to import 3 million barrels per day of tar sands oil, the carbon in our fuel supply would increase by at least 2 percent. Such an increase in tar sands oil imports could offset all the gains made under the EPA Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) by 2022. The pollution that would stem from replacing 3 million barrels per day of conventional oil with tar sands oil would be equivalent to adding more than 22 million passenger cars to the roads.

Instead of increasing our reliance on dirty tar sands, the United States should implement a comprehensive oil savings plan and reduce our oil consumption by taking advantage of options such as electric cars, renewable energy, fuel efficiency, and smart growth to meet our future energy needs.

CEA strongly believes that the State Department should approve the Keystone XL Pipeline project.Once completed, the Keystone XL project would consist of three new pipelines that will span approximately 1,380 miles across the United States from Canada, with the capacity to carry about 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day initially with an eventual increased capacity of nearly 900,000 barrels in the long-term. The environmental footprint for this project is minimal -- in fact, the total disturbed area for the project will only be approximately 150 square miles.

These secure energy supplies from the proposed pipeline will strengthen America's energy and economic security, as well as create hundreds of high paying, family-supporting jobs along the way. The Government of Alberta projects that U.S. imports of Canadian oil sands will increase from current amounts of about 1.5 million barrels daily to nearly 4.3 billion barrels a day over the next two decades in order to meet increasing demand. CEA hopes that the benefits of such a project like the Keystone XL will be considered and fully supported by the federal government; especially at a time when we are importing more and more energy supplies from places around the world that do not share our strategic interests.

We believe that the State Department got it right in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the project, which studied the project's potential impact on various environmental matters and found that the Keystone project would result in "limited adverse environmental impacts during both construction and operation". We also believe that the Department of State's environmental analysis for the Keystone Pipeline project should not include a lifecycle GHG analysis of the fuels that it will move. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that has been prepared for this project properly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions that will directly result from the project. Any evaluation of the indirect GHG emissions (such as from oil sands production or the transportation sector) would be purely speculative and should not be considered.

Despite efforts to develop alternatives, crude oil will remain a critical component of meeting America's energy needs for the foreseeable future. Ensuring access to affordable, reliable energy from our North American allies that provides economic and energy security benefits should be a national priority. Projects such as the Keystone pipeline will ensure increased domestic energy security, stable prices for consumers, along with minimal environmental impacts.

People should be skeptical of Canadian oil company claims that they can rip apart irreplaceable boreal ecosystems & put them back together again. That’s what’s required to extract tar sands. It’s a process so dirty & polluting, it makes traditional oil and gas extraction look clean by comparison. It’s just one of many lies propagated by Alberta as it presses to build a risky & massive tar sands pipeline in America. Left behind are vast ponds contaminated with toxic wastes & exposed sand landscapes held back from the river by steep, unsustainable embankments.

The extraction & refining process also produces roughly three times the greenhouse-gas emissions of more conventional oil extraction. The very trees that can take the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere are destroyed in the process. Canada’s boreal forests are now giving up more carbon dioxide than they are storing, and tar sands energy development factors in.

They also want us to believe that the pipeline that will ship the fuel across six states will be safe & worry free. It’s a fiction. Pipelines leak & spill. They always do. People need only look to the spill in Michigan in recent weeks that has been called the largest in history. It’s exactly the wrong direction for our nation’s energy policy. We need to be investing in clean sources of energy like wind & solar, and reducing our dependence on oil. This is one oil disaster President Obama can stop before it begins. He needs to bury this awful idea.

It would be shortsighted and irresponsible to deny approval for the new 1,000+ mile Keystone Mainline pipeline. Canada ranks as one of our most important trading partners and the primary supplier of crude oil imports. The environmental impact of extraction is none of our business. It’s the responsibility of the Canadian government. For EPA or any other US agency to get involved in a Canadian government internal matter represents the height of hubris.

If we don’t import this additional 500,000 barrels oil from Canada, we will import it from some other -- probably more unstable and unreliable -- source. And Canada will export its oil to some other nation. It will not go unproduced. More likely than not, the country importing the oil that we refuse to import would be less efficient in its use than us, so carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere could be greater. Whatever environmental impact that Canadian oil sands production is going to have is going to take place whether we approve the pipeline or not. Denying approval would punish US consumers and offend our neighbors to the north.

Environmentalists who are leading the opposition to the pipeline’s approval are once again showing that their zealotry comes with a disregard for our national interests and economic well being.

The US is going to rely on oil as its major energy source for decades to come. That has been the conclusion reached by the Energy Information Administration and every other valid analysis of energy use by the US up through 2030. Our economy will benefit from increasing domestic production and from importing oil from the most reliable sources available. Imports from Canada by pipeline are more secure and safer than imports that will come by tanker from nations that might not be as politically stable and reliable.

Those who promote an off oil agenda without regard to the availability of competitive alternatives are showing a flagrant disregard for the importance of fossil energy for years to come and the benefits that flow from a strong economy.