Keystone pipeline delayed, not dead: opponents call for total jettison
Posted Jan 19, 2012 05:16:48 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The environment critic for the federal NDP is calling the delay of the Keystone XL pipeline a temporary win for Canadians and Americans who have spent months protesting the project.
“It’s not what Canadians want,” said Halifax MP Megan Leslie Wednesday, after the Obama administration announced it had rejected the current transborder pipeline in light of an untenable 60-day deadline imposed by Congress last month.
Speaking to reporters from her Halifax office, Leslie called the decision a “direct result” of the Conservative government’s inaction on the oil sands and climate change.
“The whole world knows that the raw bitumen that we’re sending out is contributing to climate change and our emissions,” she said. “With the oilsands, it’s just this unchecked, uncontrolled expansion with no plan for development, and the whole world knows that, and they’re reluctant to engage in that.”
But Ottawa says the project to move Alberta oil to refineries in Texas isn’t dead — it just needs to be reworked.
Calgary-based TransCanada says it will revamp its plan and reapply with a course that would take the pipeline around an environmentally sensitive part of Nebraska.
Leslie says TransCanada should take a few more steps to make the project more environmentally sustainable.
“I think this is a warning shot, or a wakeup call, for us about diversifying our energy economy. We actually need to shift and transition to the green economy of the future,” she said.
The Obama administration put a halt to the deal because the Calgary-based company was not able to provide an environmental assessment before the Republican-imposed Feb. 21 deadline.
TransCanada said the fact Obama nixed the $7 billion pipeline was not entirely surprising, considering concerns about part of the proposed route.
The company now aims to have an in-service date of late 2014.
Republicans criticized the decision on Wednesday, claiming the project would have created tens of thousands of jobs.
According to CNN, the state department puts the job figures closer to 6,000 and a study by Cornell University puts it between 2,500 and 4,600.
Leslie said re-drawing the project could help create new, green jobs on both sides of the border.
“Cars are on the road…so we do need fossil fuels,” said Leslie. “But we are not using this resource to leverage towards the new economy. That’s what we need to be doing because that’s where the jobs are. The fact that we are not taking action on climate, that’s actually killing Canadian jobs. It’s killing the Canadian jobs of the new energy economy. That’s where the future is.”
Environmental groups on both sides of the border said they will renew their protest against the pipeline.
“To say that this pipeline, and the ways that it risks public health and the environment, is not in our national interests, it’s going to be hard to walk away from that,” said Friends of the Earth spokesperson Damon Moglen. “I can assure you that environmentalists across the country are not going to let the president walk away from this.”
