[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8596-S8598]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the House Republicans have sent us a 
payroll tax bill that is more of a political campaign commercial than a 
piece of serious legislation. Extending this tax break for ordinary 
Americans evidently has been a tough sell in the other body, unlike the 
eagerness found there for even more tax relief for the very wealthy. 
Among the many unrelated, controversial provisions they have attached 
as sweeteners is one that would force the President to approve the 
Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Proponents of this tar sands 
project provision argue that it belongs on this bill because building 
the pipeline would create jobs.
  Any construction project creates jobs. We could create thousands of 
jobs by investing in clean solar and wind energy, as the Chinese have 
done. And people can disagree about building the Keystone Pipeline, but 
there is a lot more to it than the short-term jobs it would create, and 
trying to jam it through Congress on this bill in the waning hours of 
the session is little more than a political stunt.
  It was about 15 months ago that I first learned about the plan to 
build a pipeline to transport crude oil from tar sand strip mines in 
Alberta across the U.S.-Canada border and down through the Midwestern 
United States to refineries and ports in Texas.
  Tar sands are a particularly dirty source of petroleum, from 
extraction to refinement. As I looked into this issue I saw some of the 
photographs of the boreal forest area where it is extracted, and I was 
shocked. Anyone who is interested in this issue, whether or not you 
think building the pipeline is a good idea, should look at the 
photographs. They depict an extraordinarily beautiful landscape that 
has been ravaged by heavy machinery, vast ponds filled with polluted 
water and sludge, and a scared wasteland where forests used to be. It 
is one of the more graphic examples of how our collective, insatiable 
thirst for oil has pillaged the fragile environment of this planet. Our 
demand for fossil fuels will continue to grow exponentially unless we 
come up with a comprehensive, national energy plan and have the will to 
implement it.
  We all know that the extraction of oil, minerals, timber, and other 
natural resources often harms the environment. But there are degrees of 
harm. Removing the tops of mountains and dumping the refuse in rivers 
and ravines or extracting heavy oil from tar sands are among the most 
energy intensive and destructive.
  Under the law, the State Department has the responsibility to approve 
or disapprove the pipeline because it crosses an international 
boundary. More than a year ago, I and 10 other Senators sent a letter 
to the State Department raising concerns about the

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proposed pipeline and the impact of tar sands oil on global warming and 
asking a number of questions about the Department's decisionmaking 
process. Eight months later we received a response, which answered some 
of our questions and raised others.
  I and other Senators sent two additional letters to the Department 
about the pipeline, most recently about reports of a possible conflict 
of interest between the contractor that performed the environmental 
review, Cardno/Entrix, and the energy company, TransCanada.
  There have also been e-mails indicating a less-than-arm's-length 
relationship between a State Department official at the U.S. Embassy in 
Ottawa and a lobbyist for TransCanada. And a month ago the State 
Department's inspector general announced the beginning of an 
investigation into whether conflicts of interest tainted the 
environmental review process.
  What began as basic questions and fundamental concerns about the 
pipeline has evolved into a significant controversy regarding the 
impact the pipeline will have upon our Nation's energy policy and 
continuing dependence on fossil fuels, the irreversible harm to the 
environment and the acceleration of climate change, and the potential 
for oilspills that could contaminate a key aquifer underlying an area 
of critical agricultural importance that hundreds of thousands of 
midwesterners depend on for irrigation and drinking water.
  From the beginning, I have expressed misgivings about the State 
Department's ability to conduct a thorough, credible investigation of a 
project of this complexity that involves issues about which it has 
limited expertise. There are reports of inexperienced staff handling 
the lion's share of the work, and it is not surprising that the 
Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy have 
raised concerns and identified flaws in the State Department's 
analysis.
  It is my impression that the State Department, from the outset, 
approached this with a sense of inevitability. What they did not 
anticipate was the strong reaction of Members of Congress of both 
parties, including several from Midwestern States that have been coping 
with multiple oilspills from the original Keystone Pipeline that 
company officials have treated as inconsequential. They also did not 
anticipate the strong opposition from ordinary Americans who pay close 
attention to environmental and energy policy issues, for whom tar sands 
oil is particularly repugnant.
  Concerns about the consequences of this project have united not only 
those living along the proposed route but people across the Nation, 
including in Vermont, as well as in Canada, who care about the 
environment, both in this country and in Canada, and who understand the 
need to wean our Nation from oil and other fossil fuels and to invest 
in renewables and energy efficiency.
  Every President since the 1970s has spoken of the need to reduce our 
dependence on fossil fuels and particularly foreign oil. But despite 
all the speeches, year after year we are more dependent on these 
finite, polluting sources of energy than ever before.
  Today, energy companies are spending staggering amounts of money in 
search of new sources of oil and gas in some of the most inhospitable 
places on Earth, where its extraction involves great risks to the 
people involved, the environment, and endangered species. We even send 
our young service men and women halfway around the world to fight wars, 
in part to ensure our continued access to a ready supply of oil. It has 
become a national security priority.
  We have lost valuable time, and there are no quick fixes. No matter 
what we do today, later this week, or later this month, this country 
will be dependent on fossil fuels for many years to come. But simply 
replacing Middle Eastern oil with Canadian oil without creating new, 
dependable sources of renewable energy and improving efficiency in the 
energy we use does not alleviate the national security and economic 
risks associated with a global oil market that is vulnerable to 
manipulation and disruption.
  There is also much more we could do to make use of what we have by 
wasting less, improving end-use efficiency, and increasing our use of 
renewable sources of energy. While TransCanada and its supporters extol 
the virtues of the Keystone XL Pipeline, as the minority leader and 
others have done, simply by reducing waste we could eliminate entirely 
the need for the energy produced from the oil that would flow through 
the pipeline.
  I come from a State that shares a border with Canada. My wife's 
family is Canadian. I have a great fondness for that ``giant to the 
north.'' But this issue is not about U.S. relations with Canada. We are 
inseparable neighbors, friends, and allies. There are strong views 
about this pipeline, pro and con, in both countries. As Americans, we 
have to do what is right for our country's energy future, for the 
environment, for our citizens.
  Some have argued that if this pipeline is not built, TransCanada will 
simply build a pipeline to the coast of British Columbia and export the 
oil to China. But there are significant obstacles and no indication 
that such an alternative route is a viable option. Others maintain that 
the carbon emissions from extracting and refining this oil would not 
appreciably exceed those from oil shipped by tanker from the Middle 
East, but they do not address the environmental harm and pollution 
caused by the strip mining and separation process.
  TransCanada has flooded the media with dire warnings about the 
American jobs that will be lost if the pipeline is rejected, which our 
Republican friends have echoed, trying to turn this into a campaign 
issue. But most of these are construction jobs that will disappear once 
the pipeline is built. And the choice is not between jobs or no jobs. 
They do not mention the tens or hundreds of thousands of American jobs 
that could be created by investing in other cleaner, renewable sources 
of energy, which, unlike tar sands oil, will not be used up in a few 
short decades.
  Last month, in response to concerns about the sensitive and crucial 
aquifer that the pipeline would traverse in the Midwest, the White 
House announced that the State Department will consider alternative 
routes through Nebraska and that this would delay a decision on the 
pipeline until 2013. This is positive, but it ignores the many other 
reasons to reject this project altogether.
  It is my hope that on further reflection, the President will treat 
the debate over the Keystone XL Pipeline as an opportunity to draw a 
line between our past and future energy policies.
  Fossil fuels are finite, inefficient, and dirty. The cost we pay at 
the gas pump bears no resemblance to the long-term environmental and 
health costs borne by society as a whole.
  We cannot lessen our reliance on fossil fuels by simply talking about 
it. We cannot do it by putting our goals for a better future under the 
pillow and leaving any real action to future generations. We cannot do 
it by hoping that a scientific genius will suddenly discover an 
unlimited source of energy that costs pennies and does not pollute, nor 
should we do it by spending huge amounts of money, time, talent and 
American ingenuity to search the farthest reaches of the globe for 
every last drop of oil, regardless of how dangerous or harmful to the 
environment.
  Will the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline have the cataclysmic 
consequences that some of its opponents predict? No one can say for 
sure. If anyone had asked officials at British Petroleum on April 9, 
2010, about the probability of a disaster like the one that occurred 
the next day when the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, 
they likely would have dismissed it as farfetched. It turns out they 
were violating multiple safety regulations.
  Are we going to change the pipeline's route to avoid the aquifer, 
only to continue to act as if global warming is nothing to worry about, 
that we can continue to burn more and more fossil fuels, emitting more 
and more carbon into the atmosphere, and destroying the landscape while 
we are at it?
  This pipeline would perpetuate a costly dependence that has gone on 
for a century, for which we all share in the blame. Keystone XL would 
once again do nothing to address the problems associated with fossil 
fuels. It would virtually assure more oilspills, it would do nothing to 
promote conservation and reduce waste, and it would do

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nothing to spur investment in clean energy alternatives.
  Most important, it would provide yet another excuse for once again 
punting the urgent, national security imperative of developing a 
sustainable energy policy for this country. That is what the decision 
about the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline has come to represent 
regardless of what route it takes.

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