House Will Vote to Approve Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline

The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Keystone tar sands pipeline tomorrow, which will easily pass.

The "Northern Route Approval Act" would approve the pipeline and take the decision out of President Obama’s hands, leaving it to Congress to pass.

Right now, officials from Canada are lobbying undecided Democrats since every Republican will vote for the bill.

Most Democrats are against approval of the pipeline for the many reasons we’ve repeated endlessly here.

This used to be part of Canada’s boreal forest:

Some are putting forth amendments, such as Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), which would require that all oil that travels through the pipeline and any refined products that result from it remain in the US for sale.

That’s because the pipeline is clearly meant for exporting oil – the US is simply a conduit. 

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) is submitting an amendment to delete the section of the bill that restricts court challenges to the pipeline after being approved. Opponents promise to go to court if the pipeline is approved.

An amendment from Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) would require TransCanada to disclose campaign contributions to the public for the past five years if the pipeline is approved.

The House Rules Committee is meeting today to decide which amendments get floor votes. 

Meanwhile former NASA scientist, James Hansen, is warning media and lawmakers that if tar sands extraction and burning continues, climate change will become unsolvable.
"The truth is that the tar sands gook contains more than twice the carbon from all the oil burned in human history."

Building Keystone XL Equals 51 New Coal Plants

If the world doesn’t immediately curb its dependence on fossil fuels, we are sure to see a "tremendously chaotic" climate, Hansen said during several interviews. It will be a different planet. You wouldn’t recognize it.

That’s because Earth just passed 400 ppm of carbon in the atmosphere and we’re heading toward an increase of 4 degrees centigrade, the very worst scientific projections.

Over one million comments have been submitted to the State Department opposing the pipeline and top Democratic donors sent a letter to the President asking him to reject it.

Keystone would be nearly twice as wide as the pipeline that ruptured in Arkansas, carrying almost nine times as much tar sands oil every day – 830,000 barrels. And oil companies are not required to pay into the fund that cleans up tar sands oil spills.

Still, the State Department says there aren’t potential environmental impacts from the sands pipeline.
 
And in March, the Senate voted to approve it as an amendment to the budget.

Read about the problem of NAFTA and rejecting the pipeline.

Read why this Canadian thinks the tar sands "suck":