[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       KEYSTONE XL AND TAR SANDS

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share my grave concerns about 
the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the existence of which is awaiting a 
decision by the administration.
  Last week, 84 of my colleagues--82 Republicans and 2 Democrats--
introduced H.R. 3, a bill that would approve the construction and 
maintenance of the Keystone XL pipeline.
  The world's foremost climatologist, Dr. James Hansen--and one of the 
first scientists to warn of the dangers of burning carbon fuel and a 
partial recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize--has likened the building 
and use of the Keystone pipeline to the lighting of a carbon bomb--game 
over.
  When you brush aside the studies by TransCanada and other oil 
companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies, every analysis 
clearly demonstrates that the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats 
at every turn in its extraction, its transportation, its refining, and 
its consumption--threats to our Earth.
  The truth of the matter is the U.S. isn't even going to be using 
those fossil fuels transported by that pipeline; they're going straight 
to China. In fact, the only proposed feasible method of getting those 
Canadian tar sands to China or any other country is by building the 
Keystone XL pipeline to feed into the port in Houston, Texas.
  I urge my colleagues to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, avoid lighting 
that carbon bomb in our country, oppose H.R. 3, and return our focus to 
initiatives that center on true energy independence through renewable 
resources and greener production.
  Save the Earth.

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