Redford urges U.S. to ‘rise above’ oilsands rhetoric

Premier Alison Redford expressed optimism Wednesday that U.S. regulators ultimately will approve the Keystone XL pipeline and urged American decision-makers to “rise above the rhetoric and emotion” that taint debate over her province’s oilsands reserves.

Making her second visit to the U.S. capital since November, Redford said her biggest task remains correcting “the misleading and often false information that continues to be perpetuated about the oilsands.”

Redford cited Alberta’s advances in “environmentally responsible development” of the oilsands — including year-round air quality monitoring, efforts to increase recycling of water used in production and provincial investments in carbon sequestration.

“We are never going to be dress manufacturers in Alberta,” Redford said of the province’s reliance on energy for its future prosperity.

“What I recognized when I took office is that our government needed to do a better job, particularly at telling the United States and the world about Alberta’s work to ensure that oilsands are developed responsibly.”

With the keystone xl debate growing more heated on the presidential campaign trail and in Congress, Redford was pressed on the pipeline during a meeting with U.s.-based energy reporters.

“There is some political concern. I’m not denying that,” Redford said at media breakfast sponsored by the United States Energy Association.

In January, U.S. President Barack Obama denied Calgary-based TransCanada a permit to build Keystone XL. The company is now planning an alternate route so the pipeline would avoid crossing the ecologically fragile Sand Hills region of Nebraska.

As Transcanada prepares to reapply for a presidential permit to build the 830,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, however, Redford said she has confidence in the U.S. State Department’s ability to fairly decide the project on its merits.

“I have no reason to believe that is anything other than an appropriate and fair regulatory process that I think any democracy would expect,” she said.

Redford’s comments came a day after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney vowed he would immediately approve the Keystone XL pipeline upon taking office.

Some Republican lawmakers aren’t prepared to wait that long. GOP senators are playing a political chess game with Democrats over a measure that would strip the State Department of its authority to rule on Keystone XL, giving that power instead to Congress.

Redford was keen not to get drawn into a debate over the merits of the proposed congressional shortcut to approving the pipeline.

“What we have is a regulatory process in place now that proponents of the project are respecting and following,” she said. “If there are decisions made in the United States to change that process, those are not decisions for me to comment on or respond to until we have a different situation.”