Posted on 08/18/2011 2:30:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
A controversial proposal to build a massive underground pipeline to carry 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas has become the environmental issue of the summer, pitting developers and labor unions desperate for construction jobs against environmentalists and Native American tribes who fear the pipeline will spell environmental disaster.
TransCanada Corp.'s proposed Keystone XL project would consist of more than 1,700 miles of 36-inch-diameter pipe, about 327 miles of which would be in Canada while the rest would snake southward through the central United States. Because the pipeline would cross the international border between Saskatchewan, Canada, and Morgan, Montana, a special permit from the U.S. Department of State is required .. to proceed.
More than 1,000 activists -- including NASA climatologist James Hansen, who has urged the scientific community to "get involved in this fray" -- are expected to descend on the White House starting Sunday for three weeks of civil disobedience and mass arrests. Six California activists are driving from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. as part of a "No Tar Sands Caravan" that leaves Sunday.
The American Petroleum Institute and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, both of which are urging the State Department to approve the project, held a conference call with journalists Thursday in which they claimed the pipeline could generate 20,000 new jobs.
"Today, with the US economy still struggling, nothing is more important than jobs," said Cindy Schild, API's refining issues manager. "And construction of the pipeline would mean massive numbers of them."
Jim Kimball, chief economist for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said that Teamsters president James Hoffa has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging approval of the project, which would create union jobs related to building and maintaining the pipeline.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Do environmentalists get off on being wrong?
Hear you loud and clear! Fought long and hard this last winter to be allow Shell to be able to drill OCS here (BOERME hearings) in the Chukchi And Beaufort Seas. Maybe Alaska will win the battle against the anti drill crowd short of $200 a barrel oil? We keep trying to develop, the greens would rather have us dead, than to develop.
TransCanada gets Keystone green light
The U.S. State Department has concluded TransCanada Corp.’s (TRP-T41.63——%) Keystone XL project will not cause undue environmental impacts, paving the way for likely approval of $7-billion project after a 90-day comment period.
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