Tar Sands Pipeline Spills Again
Looks like the Keystone 1 tar sands oil pipeline is spilling again - this time in Bendena, Kansas. According to the National Response Center, the pipeline spilled 50 gallons of crude oil on May 29th. This is the 12th spill on the Keystone I pipeline, including the May 7th spill of more than 400 barrels (some 16,800 gallons) in Sargent County, North Dakota. This is a pipeline that was estimated to spill only once in its first year - it hasn't even been operational for a full year and has already spilled 12 times.
And TransCanada still wants the U.S. State Department to approve its proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline?
Plus, the news on tar sands gets a little shadier with this latest announcement about the Canadian Government:
The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in pollution from Canada's oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.
Spills and shills, that's what the tar sands industry is becoming known for.
In a snappy 16-page analysis published this month, Verleger takes a hard look at the economics of the Keystone XL and guess what, it's not what it seems. For starters, the money only looks grand if you work for TransCanada. It gets nasty if you drive a car or farm in the U.S. Midwest.
In fact, Verleger draws from an overlooked Purvin & Gertz study that shows "how the pipeline would allow Canadian producers to manipulate U.S. crude oil prices to extract another $2 billion to $4 billion from U.S. consumers."
(You can read more of Verleger's great points about how bad an investment tar sands oil is in this March editorial from him.)
We're hearing it again and again. Tar sands oil and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline will not lower gas prices, it won't help our security, and it will not be immune to leaks that will severely affect nearby residents and the environment.
Unfortunately many in Congress continue to beat the drum of how more oil drilling and production is the only way to secure our energy independence. They could not be more wrong.
So we're happy to see some in the House continue to push for action on a clean energy economy and against the sham of tar sands. Just this week, House members Jay Inslee, Peter Welch, Earl Blumenauer, and Steven Cohen, joined by 30 of their Congressional colleagues, circulated a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson asking for field hearings on and a much more extensive environmental review (including climate disrupting pollution and the environmental justice issues) of the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline.
You can learn more about dirty tar sands and how to take action here on the Sierra Club's Dirty Fuels website.
