Posted on 02/05/2011 10:27:44 AM PST by thackney
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a personal pitch Friday for President Barack Obama to support a controversial $7 billion pipeline that could double the amount of Alberta oilsands crude exported to the United States.
Harper confirmed he pressed Obama on Calgary-based TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline during the two leaders' hour-long meeting at the White House.
The planned 3,200-kilometre pipeline, which would run from Hardisty, Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas, is currently in limbo as the State Department weighs whether to grant a presidential permit allowing construction to begin.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Harper was asked if he discussed Canada's role as a secure supplier of oil and whether he sought assurances the U.S. would look favourably on the Keystone XL project.
"Yes, we did discuss the matter you raised," Harper said.
Obama has been a vocal advocate of the U.S. developing "clean energy" alternatives to help wean America off foreign oil. In his state of the union address last month, he announced plans to include sharp increases in funding for clean energy technology in his upcoming budget.
But Harper said he impressed on Obama the "reality" that the U.S. will need far more energy than it can produce for "some time" to come.
"And the choice that the United States faces in all of these matters is whether to increase its capacity to accept such energy from the most secure, most stable and friendliest location it can possibly get that energy, which is Canada, or from other places that are not as secure, stable or friendly to the interests and values of the United States," Harper said.
Obama has not commented publicly on the project — and did not respond to the question asked Friday of Harper.
But the prime minister's message was precisely the one that Canadian and U.S. energy sector wanted him to deliver.
Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, wrote to Obama on Friday appealing to the U.S. president to approve Keystone XL for economic reasons, saying it could create 342,000 direct and indirect jobs between 2011 and 2015.
"Other countries are securing their energy futures and we need to do the same," Gerard wrote.
The pipeline has been on indefinite hold 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 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.
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 Plains.
U.S. environmental groups have put Keystone XL at the centre of a national advertising campaign in the U.S. against oilsands imports, triggering a TV air war of sorts with TransCanada over the pipeline's value.
Outside the White House on Friday, a small group of environmentalists protested the pipeline by holding up signs depicting states along the Keystone XL route.
"What Prime Minister Harper failed to acknowledge is that tarsands oil is highly polluting," Alex Moore, dirty fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S., said in a statement. "There are cleaner, safer ways to meet U.S. energy needs than to import this dirty oil from Canada via a dangerous pipeline through America's heartland."
FU, Mr. Moore...real Americans approve...let’s git ‘r done.
Oh, Congress..? Defund the EPA...quit screwing around.
Too bad the US can’t drill its own oil and give jobs to American companies and US workers. My bet is Obama will not approve this pipeline and give in to radical environmental groups. We all better be prepared to be shivering or sweltering in our darkened homes, standing in line for our ration of $5 gasoline and Great Depression level unemployment all thanks to Obama energy policies.
http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf/pipelineroutemaps.pdf
5.5 MB
...driving gasoline prices up to $7 per gallon, devastating the lives of millions of Americans in the process...
Obama is such a nitwit.
Here we have a friendly country willing to supply the USA with crude oil.
Obama does not want to have friendly crude oil suppliers.
No Obama wants unfriendly suppliers like Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, or Nigeria among others.
Obama is hoping the unfriendly suppliers cut us off so he can expand his expensive alternative energy projects and payoff his political supporters in the alternative energy camp.
Wasn’t there a tunnel put up and taken down quickly in India during the satrap vacation there? What was that a demonstration of really, and who was there? Where did the technology to do that go?
Oh, and is/how is Communist China connected to this ‘Keystone’ project?
I think it only needs to run to Billings, MT. Refine it there and use product pipelines to bring it to a gas station near me.
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 Plains.
That really should not be a concern as it would take a catastrophic failure of the pipeline at just the right place and followed by very inept response to even have a small chance of oil permeating the aquifer.
However, the EPA and the land owners along the pipeline route will make it difficult to get the pipeline built.
Bump.
?????
You confuse me.
Looking at the route, wouldn’t it be cheaper just to get a pipe over to the headwaters of the Mississippi River and then float it down? ;>)
Sorry.
The pipeline is a tunnel. I have wondered why that tunnel used to transport 0bama & Michelle to Ghandi’s burial spot was constructed when 0bama’s security is so heavy anyway. I think it was a demonstration of capability & technologies, more than for his protection. And I wonder who benefitted.
I am thinking of who would build such a pipeline/tunnel here through the US and who would own the rights to it or anything put through/alongside it.
“Too bad the US can’t drill its own oil and give jobs to American companies and US workers.”
While it is true that the Gulf permitting process needs to get moving, it is simply not true that we are not drilling in the USA.
In fact, almost have the working drilling rigs in world are working right here in the USA.
And if you wish to include Canada in there, the number of rigs in the two countries account for two-thirds of the rigs in operation today.
I was happier when I didn’t understand what you were trying to say.
It won’t happen while this President is in the White House. In thrall to the “environmentalists”.
A personal pitch from the PM. BO is not looking out for our interests. This should have been locked up in a contract long ago.
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