from Jerry Buechler
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| photo credit |
Dear President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, and Senator Nelson,
We are not serious about reducing global warming and its huge costs if we allow the investment of $7 billion in a pipeline to bring the most carbon-intensive oil, Tar Sands oil, to the U.S. Gulf for export. There is no mention in the March 1st U.S. State Department Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) that the Keystone XL pipeline will actually increase costs and U.S. dependence on oil by transporting Canadian oil to gulf refineries for export.
The refineries contracted are all within a Foreign Trade Zone, which will profit from special tax breaks for shipping gasoline and diesel out of our country. TransCanada’s own analysis, as part of its Canadian permit application, estimates per barrel prices will rise an estimated $3/barrel once the pipeline line is completed due to the fact that large gulf refineries will be refining the tar sands for export rather than Midwest refineries who now refine the tar sands for domestic consumption. The estimated increased pump price is 3-4 cents/gallon more, plucking an estimated $4 billion out of the pockets of US consumers yearly and giving it to Canadian and multinational oil interests.
The Keystone XL Pipeline is going through the U.S. and not to the U.S. Needing the KXL for energy independence and for jobs is the repeated lie promoted by big oil and and elected representatives in Congress who fear offending the hand that feeds their campaign coffers. This was shown in a House vote last year on a Keystone XL proposal called the “Sell-in-America Only” amendment which got voted down by all Republicans while supported by Democrats.
We import more oil from Canada than any other country. From a Canadian perspective the problem with the existing tar sands pipelines, which have unused capacity, is they all end in the Midwest and allow one buyer only- the United States. Most of the tar sands oil is refined into diesel, but U.S. diesel prices average $4/gallon while European prices average $8/gallon. TransCanada, the builder of the existing pipelines, has proposed building and connecting pipelines to west and east coast shipping ports in Canada, but Canadian citizens have consistently opposed the idea.
The fact is the U.S. for the first time since 1949 exported more oil in 2011 than it imported. In 2011 shipments abroad of petroleum products exceeded imports by 439,000 barrels a day. In 2012 the U.S. shipped abroad 350,000 barrels a day more petroleum products than it imported and the Energy Department's estimates for 2013 are 320,000 more barrels per day exported than imported. Global demand for transportation fuels is dramatically up in China, India, and Latin American countries. Pump prices are rising due to rising global demand and oil companies with an allegiance to profit rather than the country from which they harvest the oil Higher pump prices are occurring despite increased oil production and lower fuel consumption in the U.S.
Where are the jobs? The 3/1/13 SEIS estimates the creation of 35 permanent jobs. I come from South Dakota and when the Keystone One pipeline was built through S.D. to Midwest refineries constructions jobs in abundance were promised. But according to TransCanada’s own data, just 11% of the construction jobs on the pipeline in S.D. were filled by South Dakotans- most of them temporary, low-paying manual labor jobs. We need jobs, but not ones which will increase global warming. There is no shortage of water and sewage pipelines, bridges and tunnels, transportation and electrical infrastructures that need repair or development. A carbon tax channeled to energy conservation, electrical grid upgrades, building appropriately placed solar and wind installations, and improving and expanding public transportation could create millions of jobs and as a result reduce air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and save money for Americans by investing in energy efficiency for homes and businesses.
Three years after a tar sand oil spill on Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, clean up costs could surpass $1 billion according to the pipeline builder Enbridge Energy Partners. More than 800,000 gallons of tar sands oil flowed some 40 miles across wetlands and rivers in July 2010. Enbridge keeps asking the EPA to delay clean up orders while citizens criticize the slow clean up efforts near their properties. TransCanada promised that Keystone One would have one leak in 7 years, but there were 12 spills in the first year. TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline will cross through America’s agricultural heartland (250,000 ranches and farms), and cross over the Ogallala aquifer ( which provides 30% of the agricultural water used in the U.S.), over the Missouri River (and 1400 other waterways), sage grouse habitat, walleye fisheries, and the Right of Way comes within 100 feet of 35 municipal water supplies all of which face potential contamination should we proceed with this folly.
Senator Bill Nelson you recently voted to approve, in a non-binding Senate vote, the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. After your return from your space flight in 2001 you spoke these words in the Senate supporting W. Virginia Senator Byrd’s legislation on global warming: “Space is an airless vacuum that goes on and on for billions of light-years. There in its midst, suspended, is this wonderful creation called planet Earth, our home. As I would look at the rim of the Earth, I could see what sustains all of our life. I could see the atmosphere. As I would look further, I would start to see how we are messing it up.” In the light of your words I would ask you to reconsider your support for the plunder and destruction of pristine carbon reducing boreal forest in Canada with the potential size of Florida, leaving behind toxic tailing lakes which kill birds and aquatic life and then release global warming carbon and methane as everything in them rots and dies. Mr. President, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Nelson are you going to support the 1% or are you going to support carbon reduction and clean air and the millions of jobs that could be created for the 99% by making this country clean energy independent? CO2 levels went up from 393.54 parts/per/million (ppm) in February 2012 to 396.80 ppm in Feb. 2013 at the Mauna Loa Observatory. 350 ppm is considered safe by scientists, yet at the current rate of increase we will be at 500 ppm in another 30 years. CO2 was last at 500 ppm 2.5 million years ago and two-thirds of present Florida was underwater. It is time to stop ignoring the elephant in the room!
Jerry Buechler, St. Lucie County Democrats, V- President
billnelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cmf or call (202)224-5374
