[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 88 (Monday, June 14, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4400-H4402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PERMISSION FOR MEMBER TO INCLUDE EXTRANEOUS MATERIAL

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to 
introduce an article into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Tennessee?
  There was no objection.

Staying Hooked on a Dirty Fuel: Why Canadian Tar Sands Pipelines Are a 
                     Bad Bet for the United States

             (From the National Wildlife Federation Report)


                CONFRONTING GLOBAL WARMING--INTRODUCTION

       ``America is addicted to oil.''
       When President George W. Bush uttered these words in his 
     2006 State of the Union address, the former Texas oilman 
     acknowledged an imperative as important as any we can imagine 
     for the nation's future: breaking that crude addiction.
       Our addiction to oil has come with an untenable cost: to 
     our national security, to our air and water, and to the 
     ability of our warming planet to support billions of human 
     lives. The recent Gulf Coast crisis, stemming from an 
     exploding offshore drilling rig, is just one more reason to 
     kick our prodigious habit. The United States consumes about 
     one quarter of the world's oil--around 20 million barrels a 
     day, and imports nearly two-thirds of that--about 13 million 
     barrels per day. For economic, political, military and 
     ecological reasons, the United States needs to address this 
     addiction--and beat it.
       The burgeoning Canadian tar sands industry epitomizes the 
     depths of our addiction. Tar sands are a combination of clay, 
     sand, and bitumen found in great quantities under the boreal 
     forest of Alberta. By employing massive mining operations or 
     energy-intensive underground heating and production 
     techniques, energy companies produce a sludge-like heavy oil 
     that can be further refined into transportation fuels like 
     gasoline or diesel. As this report explains, expanding the 
     mining, processing and refining of these tar sands represents 
     a tragic choice for Canada, the United States, and the world.
       British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon tragedy off the 
     Louisiana coast, which killed 11 men and is an unfolding 
     ecological disaster, is not an argument to expand Canadian 
     tar sands development, as some have argued. The Gulf Coast 
     catastrophe should instead propel us away from a future of 
     diminishing returns and higher costs from ``unconventional'' 
     fossil fuel extraction, which includes tar sands, oil shale 
     and coal-to-liquids. Moving deeper into tar sands would be 
     taking the country down the wrong path--one that leads to an 
     inevitable dead-end.
       The tar sands industry aims to create an extensive web of 
     pipelines to deliver increasing amounts of this Canadian tar 
     sands sludge to refineries in the United States. The U.S. 
     federal government has already approved two dedicated tar 
     sands pipelines and is poised to approve a third. The 
     Canadian company Enbridge's Alberta Clipper pipeline, running 
     from the U.S.-Canadian border in North Dakota, and across 
     Minnesota to Wisconsin, has already been completed. 
     TransCanada's Keystone I pipeline, which the State Department 
     approved in 2009, runs from Alberta to Illinois and on to 
     Oklahoma. TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline is the 
     third pipeline whose permit application is currently being 
     reviewed by the U.S. State Department. It would cut through 
     America's heartland, running nearly 2,000 miles from Alberta 
     down to Port Arthur, Texas, where the tar sands will be 
     refined into transportation fuels. Other, shorter pipelines 
     are envisioned to run to refineries around the country. This 
     network of tar sands pipelines would deliver even more 
     pollution to refineries where and the surrounding 
     communities, which are already experiencing health effects.
       The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will traverse rivers and 
     carve across prairies, will flow on top of vital aquifers, 
     and threaten farmers, ranchers and wildlife when it leaks or 
     breaks, as it unquestionably will. Building this new pipeline 
     would institutionalize a demand for a product that we do not 
     need--especially if we seize the initiative to wean ourselves 
     from this a fuel that is sullying our coasts, tearing up our 
     heartland, and destroying the health and livelihoods of 
     communities. Current projections are that the new pipeline 
     would not even run close to capacity, raising the question of 
     why the U.S. is even considering this project.
       Promoting the growth of the Canadian tar sands industry is 
     a dangerous and foolhardy development. This pipeline system 
     would virtually assure the destruction of swaths of one of 
     the world's most important forest ecosystems, produce lake-
     sized reservoirs of toxic waste, import a thick, tarlike fuel 
     that will release vast quantities of toxic chemicals into our 
     air when it is refined in the U.S., and emit significantly 
     more global warming pollutants into the atmosphere than fuels 
     made from conventional oil. Communities that live near the 
     tar sands are already experiencing health problems linked to 
     the pollution, and dozens of wildlife species are at risk, 
     including millions of migrating cranes, swans, and songbirds. 
     If Keystone XL crosses our border, it will cut through 
     thousands of miles of sensitive habitat in America's 
     heartland. When the tar sands are refined in U.S. facilities, 
     the resulting pollution will foul our air and water.
       We believe that the U.S. needs clean and renewable energy 
     solutions as we make the inevitable and necessary transition 
     to a post-oil world. Tar sands, as well as other inferior 
     fossil fuels like oil shale, simply should not be part of the 
     equation. Tar sands are a starkly inefficient, polluting, 
     ecologically disastrous and expensive way to power our cars 
     and trucks. Each tar sands pipeline our government approves 
     further increases our dependence on this dirty fuel. These 
     pipelines will become, in effect, a long-term, government-
     approved pollution delivery system.
       If we allow all these pipelines to be built, we are 
     essentially saying that we are willing to feed our oil habit, 
     even if we know it will harm our air, water, health, 
     prosperity and planet. Agreeing to increase our imports of 
     Canadian tar sands represents the worst kind of addictive 
     behavior: ``persistent compulsive use of a substance known by 
     the user to by physically, psychologically, or socially 
     harmful.''
       Why then, we ask in this report, is the U.S. poised to 
     allow this expanded pipeline network that will lock our 
     country into an ongoing reliance on the dirtiest of fossil 
     fuels?
       It is time to apply every ounce of American ingenuity to 
     finding a technological

[[Page H4401]]

     path to a future that relies far less on oil and other fossil 
     fuels and far more on sources of fuel that are renewable, 
     sustainable, and clean. By applying the talent and technology 
     of America's best minds and businesses, this country can 
     dramatically improve our environment and accelerate our move 
     beyond a dirty energy economy.
       We have arrived at a critical crossroads that will 
     determine whether we can break free from this dependence--or 
     lash ourselves tighter to it. Building new pipelines to 
     import billions of barrels of dirty fuel from Canada is 
     taking the wrong path into increasingly hazardous terrain. We 
     should tell our elected leaders to reconsider.


 big oil pushes for pipelines: transporting a dirty fuel that ravages 
                      alberta's forests and waters

                         tar sands development

       An aerial view of the area around Fort McMurray, Alberta, 
     provides a stark portrait of an addiction. The Athabasca 
     River, snaking through a region once marked by unending 
     vistas of glowing green conifers and populated by woodland 
     caribou, moose, bears and lynx, now demarcates ground zero 
     for what is arguably the most destructive peacetime 
     industrial activity in the history of mankind.
       Tar sands development has transformed a landscape of boreal 
     forest and peat lands into a vast oil sacrifice zone. On 
     either side of the river, a series of giant open pit mines, 
     belching processing facilities, and poisonous tailings ponds 
     now line the floodplains and wetlands. The giant toxic 
     tailings ponds have grown large enough to see from space.
       Even more troubling, the industrial activity is poised to 
     spread across the landscape like blight. If all the current 
     Canadian tar sands leases are exploited, development is 
     slated to encompass an area the size of New York and New 
     Jersey combined.
       The Canadian tar sands industry is, by almost any measure, 
     one of the most wasteful and polluting industries humanity 
     has ever invented. Over the past ten years, commercial tar 
     sands production became increasingly profitable because of 
     rising oil prices and massive infrastructure construction 
     that accelerated the development's expanding reach. In 
     pursuit of profits that increased with the scaled-up 
     production, energy companies have torn up a province, 
     released countless gallons of toxic sludge into waterways, 
     emitted hundreds of millions of tons of global warming 
     pollutants into the atmosphere, and produced billions of 
     barrels of viscous, heavy oil that requires vast amounts of 
     energy to transport and refine into a transportation fuel.


                           EXTRACTING BITUMEN

       Locked in underground pockets of sand, clay and water, tar 
     sands contain bitumen, which is a heavy, black viscous oil 
     that can be extracted, upgraded, refined, and turned into 
     fuel. The Canadian Energy Research Institute estimates that 
     these tar sands contain 1.7 trillion barrels of heavy crude, 
     of which approximately 173 billion barrels are recoverable.
       About 20 percent of Alberta's tar sands deposit is close 
     enough to the surface to be dug up using conventional open 
     pit mining techniques. Using this method, the forest is 
     clear-cut and giant open pit mines carve the layers of tar 
     sands from the earth. These tar sands are trucked to 
     facilities where they are heated into a liquid, and the 
     bitumen is separated from the sand and clay. This process 
     requires substantial amounts of water and energy, and 
     leaves behind a number of toxic byproducts.
       Another technique, known as in situ production, will be 
     used to target the other 80 percent of tar sands deposits, 
     located deeper in the ground. In situ production requires 
     companies to insert pipes into the ground, which are filled 
     with steam to heat up the tar sands and liquify the bitumen. 
     This liquid bitumen is then pumped to the surface much like 
     conventional oil. Although this technique does not result in 
     the same wholesale habitat destruction as strip mines, 
     industry claims that in situ mining is a ``solution'' for tar 
     sands environmental problems is overstated. This process 
     requires substantially more energy than conventional mining, 
     leaving a much larger carbon footprint. In situ mining also 
     fragments the landscape with roads and pumping stations, 
     requires large amounts of water, and still leaves toxic 
     tailings ponds during the upgrading process.
       Both open pit mining and in situ processes require systems 
     of roads, pads, industrial facilities and tailings ponds that 
     all contribute to the fragmentation and destruction of the 
     boreal forest. The tailings ponds--which are more like giant 
     toxic lakes filled with pollutants like benzene, cyanide, and 
     mercury--stretch across the landscape, threatening human 
     health and wildlife.


                   THREATENING DOWNRIVER COMMUNITIES

       Scientists already have catalogued human health problems 
     among the First Nations people who live downriver. Studies 
     have raised alarms about increased cancer rates and 
     autoimmune diseases. In the Fort Chipewyan First Nation, 
     where subsistence hunting and fishing is still prevalent, 
     hunters say they have noticed big changes in the game they 
     harvest-including the fact that moose livers are enlarged and 
     white-spotted. Water from the Athabasca River, their main 
     water source, now leaves brown residue in the pot when they 
     boil it. Fish they depend on are contaminated with high 
     levels of mercury and toxic cancer-causing chemicals.
       Because the communities in the vicinity of the mining sites 
     are small, there has been relatively little monitoring of how 
     much the industrial activity has affected human and wildlife 
     health. What is clear is that the process of extracting, 
     upgrading, and refining tar sands requires a suite of 
     chemicals and produces toxic byproducts.


                          DELIVERY TO THE U.S.

       Much the tar sands upgrading to date has taken place in 
     Alberta, but the refining capacity is not high enough for the 
     projected increase in production. That is why the tar sands 
     industry is proposing pipelines to the U.S.: to bring the 
     unrefined heavy crude to refineries in the U.S.
       Today, approximately 60 percent of Canadian tar sands fuel 
     is exported to the U.S. Our nation currently imports about 
     800,000 barrels of this fuel a day, and some project that 
     this could increase fivefold if all the planned pipelines are 
     constructed, world oil supply from conventional oil dwindles, 
     and global demand intensifies.
       In Canada, concern and opposition has been rising as the 
     ecological fallout from tar sands production becomes more 
     visible. If the U.S. continues its voracious oil habit and 
     builds these pipelines to support it, we will be contributing 
     to this Canadian calamity for many years to come.


              poisoned habitat: wildlife in the crosshairs

                         A DESTRUCTIVE BUSINESS

       The video footage is heartbreaking: a mallard drake, 
     flapping its wings in muck and beak dripping black gunk, 
     barely keeping afloat in oil sludge. No, not Alaska after the 
     infamous Exxon Valdez spill, or the Gulf Coast wetlands after 
     the BP explosion. It is the result of ``normal'' tar sands 
     development in Alberta.
       Scientists are only beginning to understand the extent of 
     the impacts of Alberta tar sands production on the fish, 
     waterfowl, and forest animals that live in the remote boreal 
     forest that has become the hub of industrial tar sands 
     production. Habitat destruction and fragmentation is 
     expanding rapidly, and even energy companies acknowledge that 
     they are effectively destroying habitat as they go. In a 
     recent report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the 
     authors quote the energy giant Shell describing the impacts 
     in an application for a mine expansion: ``Effectively, a 
     complete loss of soil and terrain, terrestrial vegetation, 
     wetlands and forest resources, wildlife and biodiversity 
     happens for this area for the period of operations.''
       This kind of large-scale habitat destruction raises even 
     larger concerns, because there is so much at stake in this 
     fecund northern wilderness.
       The surrounding forest is home to the full complement of 
     wildlife any sportsman would imagine living in the Canadian 
     wilderness: bears, wolves, lynx, and important herds of 
     woodland caribou. The Athabasca River is part of a vital 
     nesting and staging ground for migratory waterfowl, many of 
     which winter in the continental U.S. The Canadian boreal 
     forest provides breeding, nesting or migration stops for more 
     than 300 species of birds--including several species of 
     cranes, shorebirds, and more than a million inland birds.


                          FULL IMPACTS UNKNOWN

       Scientists know very little about the cumulative impacts of 
     tar sands development, says Canadian ecologist Kevin Timoney, 
     because the Canadian government, provincial authorities, and 
     energy companies have not conducted adequate monitoring and 
     testing. Timoney however, has begun documenting a series of 
     harmful effects to wildlife from habitat fragmentation, toxic 
     exposures, and other threats to wildlife.
       Some of these effects have gained public notice. In 2008, 
     1,600 ducks perished when they landed in a tar sands mine 
     tailings pond operated by Syncrude. Originally, the company 
     downplayed the numbers, and it took several years and a 
     prosecution to bring the extent of the damage to light. A 
     lawsuit is pending against Syncrude.
       Timoney estimates that even 1,600 substantially 
     underestimates bird mortality from this event--and many 
     others that remain undocumented. In an article published in 
     the Open Conservation Biology Journal, Timoney laid out a 
     disturbing case that tar sands development has led to a 
     permanent loss of at least 58,000 birds--and possibly as many 
     as 400,000.
       The Syncrude tailings pond deaths were the result of the 
     birds becoming mired in oil, despite companies' efforts to 
     shoo birds away from their toxic tailings ponds using noise 
     cannons and scarecrows. The Cambridge Energy Research Report 
     states that, ``the surface layer of bitumen found on most 
     tailings ponds is an acute threat to wildlife.''
       Timoney says there are other dangers as well. He and others 
     have documented at least 43 other bird species--waterfowl and 
     shore birds, birds of prey and gulls--that have died from tar 
     sands-related development. Timoney also made a Freedom of 
     Information and Protection of Privacy request of the Alberta 
     Sustainable Resources Development, which disclosed that 27 
     black bears, 67 deer, 31 red foxes, 21 coyotes and 
     unspecified numbers of moose, muskrats, beavers, voles, 
     martens, wolves and bats had also perished on tar sands 
     operations between 2000 and 2008.
       Even more disturbing, Timoney discovered that those 
     reported numbers came from the energy companies themselves, 
     suggesting an under-reporting of some significance. ``The

[[Page H4402]]

     numbers of dead animals reported to government,'' he wrote, 
     ``underestimated true mortality because they were derived 
     from ad hoc reporting by companies rather than from a 
     scientifically valid and statistically robust sampling 
     design.''
       In another study, Timoney analyzed data from government and 
     industry sources that revealed strong evidence of chemical 
     contamination in the Athabasca River. Specifically, the 
     levels of known cancer-causing chemicals were as high as in 
     industrial zones in the United States. Elevated levels of 
     mercury and other heavy metals were also present. A 
     government report from the Regional Aquatics Monitoring 
     Program determined that more than seven percent of river fish 
     showed growth abnormalities, which Timoney says is ``high.''


                          an expanding threat

       There is every reason to believe this problem will only 
     worsen. According to Environmental Defense Canada, tar sands 
     tailings ponds already have a surface area of 50 square 
     miles, twice the size of Manhattan. These contaminated 
     tailings ponds have already leaked into the nearby waterways, 
     and projections are they will triple in size.
       This spells more trouble for wildlife, especially migrating 
     birds. According to Colleen Cassady St. Clair and Robert 
     Ronconi from the University of Alberta's Faculty of Science, 
     ``spring migration is a particular problem in northeastern 
     Alberta, when the warm-water waste from oil sands mines are 
     the only open water--the natural bodies are still frozen. 
     When waterfowl land in these ponds, they may ingest oil and 
     their plumage may become oiled with waste bitumen, 
     potentially preventing birds from flying or leading to lost 
     insulation and death from hypothermia.''
       Even though there has been very little study of the effects 
     of tar sands development on wildlife, the indications are 
     that this development is releasing a potentially devastating 
     onslaught on Canadian and internationally-migrating animals. 
     As ecologist Timoney put it: ``The effects of these 
     pollutants on ecosystem and public health deserve immediate 
     and systematic study. Projected tripling of tar sands 
     activities over the next decade may result in unacceptably 
     large and unforeseen impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem 
     function, and public health. The attention of the world's 
     scientific community is urgently needed.''

                          ____________________