2013 SkS News Bulletin #13: Alberta Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

10 Reasons Canada Needs to Rethink the Tar Sands
A black mound of Canadian oil waste is rising over Detroit
Ads aimed at U.S. lawmakers
Could NAFTA force Keystone XL on United States?
Is Canada’s tar sands oil too dirty for Europe?
Keystone XL pipeline has become too big to approve
Keystone XL pipeline not a big deal
Lines in the sand
Major donors urge Obama to reject Keystone XL pipeline
Native Americans quit talks over Keystone XL pipeline
UK signals support for EU import of Canadian tar sands oil
US House set to approve construction of Keystone XL pipeline
US "national interest" argument for Keystone XL weakens

10 Reasons Canada Needs to Rethink the Tar Sands

As a Canadian it blows my mind that we can have the second largest deposits of oil in the world, but our government remains billions in debt and one in seven Canadian children live in poverty.

I feel like we are being played for fools here in Canada, because foreign owned oil companies like ExxonMobil, British Petroluem and PetroChina (71% of oil sands production is owned by foreign shareholders) are making billions exporting raw tar sand from our country, while us citizens are dealing with all the nasty downsides.

A black mound of Canadian oil waste is rising over Detroit

Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Ads aimed at U.S. lawmakers

The Conservative government has launched a public relations advertising offensive on American lawmakers ahead of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s trip this week to New York, selling Canada as an environmental leader in hopes of winning U.S. political support for the Keystone XL oilsands pipeline.

Tories hope ads aimed at U.S. lawmakers will win support for Keystone pipeline by Jason Fekete, PostMedia News, Vancouver Sun, May 13, 2013

Could NAFTA force Keystone XL on United States?

As the public anxiously awaits the U.S. State Department’s final decision on the fate of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the discussion has largely ignored the elephant in the room: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.)

Is Canada’s tar sands oil too dirty for Europe?

As the debate over the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline continues in the United States, a Canadian trade delegation is insisting that Canadian oil extracted from tar sands — the product that would be transported by an expanded pipeline — should not be classified as being dirtier than other types of oil.

Keystone XL pipeline has become too big to approve

I have been making a documentary film about the Keystone XL pipeline for the past year and a half, and the story has changed dramatically in that time. I have focused on a group of landowners and activists in East Texas who tried to stop construction of the pipeline -- variously through the courts, political activism and civil disobedience. Theirs are the untold stories of how this pipeline fight has continued to burn for so long. For them, the fight is personal; at the end of the day, they don't have anywhere else to go. By looking closely at their stories, I have seen the many complex layers of the battle, and I have glimpsed social change in action in America. I'm quite certain that the Keystone confusion recently swirling around Washington is intimately tied to what's been happening over the past few years in the woods of East Texas, on the ranchlands of Nebraska, across Native American tribal lands, and at the gates of the White House. Keystone XL has become far more than a pipeline.

Keystone XL pipeline not a big deal

Last week, the Washington DC publication National Journal gave us the scoop, in an article entitled, “What People Close to Obama Think About the Keystone XL Pipeline”: Obama-connected environmental experts “are now saying publicly what many Democratic energy and climate advisers have said more privately over the past couple of years: The Keystone XL pipeline is not that big of a deal.” The National Journal article seems designed to persuade the DC policy community of the inevitability — and maybe even the correctness — of a decision by the Obama Administration to allow the controversial pipeline to go forward. In other words, game over.

Lines in the sand

President Obama will make a decision in the next few months—unless he puts it off again, as he did in 2011—about whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. The question before him is whether it’s in the “national interest” to grant the permits needed for constructing Keystone, which is supposed to dogleg from Alberta to Nebraska, and join a pipeline that will extend to Texas, connecting Canada’s tar-sands deposits with American refineries. The latest figures from Mauna Loa reveal what’s at stake.

Major donors urge Obama to reject Keystone XL pipeline

Where money talks louder than science, the letter from the donors won't go unnoticed, the week before Prime Minister Harper is to visit Washington.

Native Americans quit talks over Keystone XL pipeline

Leaders from 11 Native American tribes stormed out of a meeting with US federal officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which they say will lead to ‘environmental genocide.’

UK signals support for EU import of Canadian tar sands oil

Leaked papers show UK rejects proposal to classify oil from tar sands as highly polluting, a label that would deter EU countries from importing it.

US House set to approve construction of Keystone XL pipeline

The House will vote Wednesday on legislation that would expedite construction of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline’s northern leg.

US "national interest" argument for Keystone XL weakens

U.S. oil production is suddenly growing so fast that some analysts are questioning how much the country really needs the Canadian tar sands oil that would move through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.