U. S. oil industry threatens ad blitz to force approval
WASHINGTON — Supporters of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline are threatening a nationwide advertising blitz unless U. S. President Barack Obama approves the $ 8- billion US project before Christmas.
Six years of “dithering” over the pipeline’s approval has to stop, Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute ( API), said in a conference call.
He said API, which represents oil and gas companies throughout the United States, is prepared to “spend significant resources to make sure the message is loud and clear both to the president and to the Congress.”
“It’s time to move on,” he said. “There couldn’t be a greater holiday gift for those men and women out of work today who would like to have these high- paying jobs associated with Keystone.”
In what is surely a cautionary message to Canada’s claim of energy supremacy, Gerard called Keystone XL a vital link in the U. S. “energy renaissance” that would transform the country into the world’s “energy superpower.”
“It’s a unique opportunity in our history to really seize the role as the energy superpower,” he said. “We are going to re- order the power, as it were, when it relates to energy and it’s all going to end up right here in the United States.”
Killing the Keystone XL would be tantamount to shipping jobs to Canada, he said.
“We are either going to put 42,000 people to work building a domestic infrastructure project for the good of our nation ( and) Canada etc., or we’re going to allow Canadians to build infrastructure in their own nation to ship out elsewhere to refine, process and consume,” he said. “So if you want to talk about outsourcing jobs, the way to do that is to continue to deny the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.”
Canadians, he warned, are “moving forward” with pipelines of their own.
While acknowledging Canada’s own regulatory and approval problems for eastern and western pipelines, he said Canadians “are committed to alternatives” to Keystone.
“They are producing that product and I’m fully confident they will find ways to get it to market just like they are doing now, and that’s a sharp contrast to what we are doing here in the United States when it relates to Keystone.“
Rumours of a possible compromise on the Keystone project have surfaced, but it’s not clear what kind of a compromise. Some say it could relate to an industry agreement on new oil and gas regulations expected soon from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Gerard said he believes there is “some mechanism to accomplish a compromise.”
“There’s a lot of talk, a lot of speculation on how this all sorts out,” he said, adding that “Keystone XL is not going away and we’re resolved to continue the fight.”
Opposition to Keystone stems mainly from a concern that it will allow the expansion of the oilsands and therefore contribute to the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama has mentioned that Keystone’s impact on climate change will play an important role in his decision.
But Gerard made no mention of climate change nor were any of the journalists allowed to ask questions.
In response to the API announcement of an ad campaign, Bold Nebraska, an activist group leading the opposition to Keystone in that state, sent 700 “veto pens” to Obama to reject Keystone.
The pens are inscribed with the words, “President Obama, this machine stops pipelines.”
Last spring, Obama announced his intention to delay a decision on Keystone until a Nebraska court sorts out an issue surrounding the approval of the pipeline’s route through the state.