Anyone who follows CLF’s work knows about plans being pushed to move oil derived from tar sands in Canada through pipelines that would cut across Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  The purpose of the these pipelines is simple and clear: to allow this oil to reach the sea and foreign markets that can only be reached by oil tanker.

It is easy to understand why the Canadian oil industry, and the multi-national petroleum companies with big Canadian investments, want to move the oil extracted from the Tar Sands of Western Canada out to the larger world markets: doing so will mean they make A LOT of money.  The Canadian petroleum industry has explained this for us all very helpfully in an ad found on page 2 of the June-July 2013 issue of the Canadian Public Policy and Politics magazine with the zippy name of “Policy” that we reprint here.

The ad confirms the purpose of the wave of pipeline building being pushed by the Canadian petroleum industry (and ExxonMobil and Koch Industries, the owners of leading Canadian companies like Imperial Oil/Esso and Flint Hills Resources): to raise the price of Canadian oil up to the levels found on many global markets.  As the ad shows, using little prices tags, the price of oil in the North American market hovers around $85 a barrel at times when the same barrel of oil sells for $110 elsewhere in the world. If the producers, refiners and sellers of that oil have access to world markets they can demand that North American customers pay them the higher price if they want to buy this oil.  This reality is especially stark when you look at the fact that oil refining companies with operations in the United States just don’t care if these pipelines get built – they are fully occupied with oil extracted right here at home.  It is just Canadian companies (and the multi-national companies like ExxonMobil and Koch who own Canadian operations) who profit from the push for these pipelines.

So we know who wins if new pipelines carry Canadian oil to reach global markets: the petroleum companies who reap the higher prices found beyond the United States and Canada. But who loses?

The answer to that requires us to think both about the short-term in which we all live our day-to-day lives and the longer-term world in which future generations will have to live.

When we think about immediate and short-term concerns for our families and businesses it doesn’t get any more real than gasoline prices.

Supporters of building pipelines to move Canadian oil to market generally and the highest profile project, the Keystone XL pipeline that would move oil through the middle of the United States from Canada to the Gulf Coast, invoke gas prices as a reason for taking that step, at least implying that the new pipelines will drive down gas prices.

However,  it is well documented in a number of reports and studies that Midwestern drivers would see gasoline prices rise on the order of 42 cents a gallon if that pipeline is built. And this is not surprising – if the oil used to make gasoline is being sold (and bought) at higher prices then gasoline prices will rise.

So in the short term – the losers in this equation? Anyone who buys gasoline or relies upon goods or services that rely on gasoline or diesel fuel that are transported by car, truck, ship or airplane – in short all of us.

And that doesn’t even get into the critical longer term issue: that tapping into the tar sands oil, bringing them to market and burning them would be a large step towards the devastating climate disaster that is unfolding around us and that we need to stop.

There are those who disagree with this assessment. Some politicians argue that tar sands oil from Canada is needed to free ourselves from dependence on oil imported from volatile (and often hostile) nations overseas.  They suggest that these pipelines will simply bring it that oil to markets we, here in the U.S., draw upon, oddly ignoring the stated purpose of the pipelines to bring the oil to higher-priced offshore markets.

And there are thoughtful and detailed analyses that disagree with the climate argument about this oil.  This analysis argues that if the tar sands oil is not brought to market that it will simply be replaced by slightly-easier-to-access Venezuelan oil with a very similar carbon footprint.

That climate impact analysis, and the political argument for building pipelines to tap into tar sands oil, however ignore one important, essential and difficult option: use less oil instead. The advent of electric vehicles, smarter urban development and increases in transit use all converge to show us a way forward and off of oil. The increase in fuel economy standards, a process that is well underway, is a step on that path.

Getting off oil will not be easy.  As the social critic, songwriter and bicycle enthusiast David Byrne has noted, “From the age of the Dinosaurs, cars have run on gasoline.”  Changing something so fundamental will be hard but it is what we need to do; that is what in all of our interests, not laying new pipelines to bring ancient oil derived from the cracking and boiling of tar sands to foreign markets where it will be burned and released into the atmosphere.

Come join Conservation Law Foundation and our allies THIS SATURDAY in Burlington, Vermont for a discussion on Vermont’s Energy Choices.

Vermont’s Energy Choices: Old Dirty Problems and Clean Energy Solutions
Saturday, April 27th, 1:30 PM at the Billings Auditorium at UVM in Burlington

The time is NOW to move away from dirty sources of energy such as tar sands, nuclear, oil and coal. Solutions are available now to move us away from expensive, dangerous and polluting energy.

Come hear national and international experts on the problems of dirty energy – from fracking to tar sands – and  the real-world successes of renewable power – including community based renewable power in Europe.

Throwing up our hands is not an option. Come find out how to make a clean energy future our reality.

You can sign up and more information here:  See you Saturday!

Vermont has a key role to play in keeping tar sands oil where it belongs — in the ground.

The increasingly imminent proposal to move tar sands oil from Canada through an existing pipeline in the Northeast Kingdom brings this issue very close to home.

At town meetings across the state earlier this month, 29 Vermont communities passed resolutions opposing the transportation and use of tar sands oil. This was a clear message that Vermonters don’t want to be complicit in the next chapter on climate destruction.

As with the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama can nix any proposal to bring tar sands through Vermont. Congressional members, including Vermont’s delegation, have called on the president to give any plan to bring tar sands through New England a searching environmental review.

We are a small state, but we have already borne more than our fair share of climate-change disasters. Stopping tar sands oil in its tracks and keeping it out of Vermont moves us in the right direction on climate change and helps avoid more climate devastation.

Tar sands oil, a gritty tar-like substance extracted from the sands of Alberta, Canada, is very different and far more damaging to our climate than conventional oil. It leaves behind a big mess and literally digs us deeper into the hole of climate change.

In a recent Scientific American article, editor David Biello reports that tar sands oil emits twice the greenhouse gas per barrel as conventional oil. As we seek newer and cleaner energy sources, using oil that is twice as dirty sends us hurtling at warp speed in exactly the wrong direction.

The nation’s leading climate scientist, James Hansen, says the exploitation of tar sands oil will mean “game over” for the climate. It’s not just that tar sands oil is twice as dirty — there is also a lot of it. The government of Alberta estimates that it has available proven reserves of over 170 billion barrels of tar sands oil. That makes it the third largest proven reserve in the world, enough oil to meet Canada’s current demand for four hundred years.

The tar sands oil in Alberta sits beneath an area that is roughly the size of Florida. The reserves are vast and bountiful — not what we want from a resource that is extra dirty.

Doubling down on tar sands keeps us sadly hooked on oil, hooked on climate disasters for centuries and delays efforts to move towards cleaner energy supplies.

Tar sands oil creates other problems as well. The oil is extracted in enormous open pits, leaving vast destruction in its wake. Large areas are left uninhabitable for wildlife. Migratory birds get trapped in the waste pits.

And tar sands oil is corrosive, meaning greater wear and tear on pipelines — many of which are more than 60 years old, like the one in the Northeast Kingdom.

Spills of tar sands oil are far worse and more difficult to clean up than ordinary spills. The 2010 spill of tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan is already the most expensive pipeline oil spill in U.S. history, and cleanup may never be complete.

In short, tar sands oil is bad news all around.

Vermonters are not idly standing by. In addition to the town meeting resolutions, the Legislature is considering a bill that would require a review of any proposal to move tar sands oil through Vermont.

And a number of environmental groups and citizens recently filed a legal action requesting that any plans to use the existing pipeline for tar sands oil be reviewed though Vermont’s land use development law — Act 250 — to protect our land, water and air resources threatened by this dirty fuel.

The resolve of Vermonters can help keep tar sands oil in the ground and show how responsible action to tackle climate change can leave a clean legacy for our children.

This article was originally published as a Weekly Planet column in the Environment Section of the Rutland Herald/Times Argus newspapers on March 17, 2013. You can find a copy here.