Pipeline opponents say House hearings backfired

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power held hearings on a bill to force the State Department to issue a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline by Nov. 1, but opponents of the project say those hearings showed why it should not be approved at all.

Though the panel testifying before the committee was stacked with supporters of the pipeline, Corporate Ethics International said the testimony “demonstrated that the Administration should study this project more, not less, especially as to whether it will raise gas prices.”

Jeremy Symons, Senior Vice President of Conservation and Education for the National Wildlife Federation, was the only opponent of the project to testify in front of the committee. He argued:

The dangerous and unnecessary Keystone XL proposal is an oil company scheme to increase U.S. gas prices by 10-20 cents per gallon, with the highest price spikes in the Midwest United States. The pipeline scheme will raise gas prices, hurt our energy security and jeopardize vital clean water supplies. The pipeline is equivalent to a $4 billion a year tax on oil we already get from Canada, with all the money going from American wallets and pocketbooks to oil companies…

The Keystone XL pipeline scheme is an oil company wolf hiding in Canadian sheepskin. Big oil’s claims that this pipeline will help our energy security are a carefully fabricated mirage. The data show that the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline will do nothing to reduce our reliance on oil from hostile nations. A study commissioned by the Department of Energy concluded that the pipeline “would not of itself have any significant impact on U.S. oil imports.”

To the contrary, the Keystone XL pipeline scheme opens the Canada-to-China oil route that oil companies have long sought. The pipeline will take Canadian oil that is already flowing to America away from U.S. refineries in the Midwest and send it instead to foreign-owned refineries on the Gulf Coast for export.

The oil companies behind this project are desperate for Congress and the Administration to rush the approval of this pipeline scheme because the truth is finally coming to light. For example, even as we sit here today, the Federal Trade Commission is considering whether to open an investigation into the plans of oil companies to use KXL to manipulate and increase gas prices for Americans.

Symons also pointed to the fact that the first phase of the project, which carries tar sands oil to Midwest oil refineries, has had 11 leaks in its first year of operation, leaks that he called “clear warnings that America’s outdated pipeline safety laws are not prepared for the highly corrosive and toxic tar sludge that is proposed to be pressurized and sped through 2,000 miles of [the Keystone XL] pipeline, crossing some of America’s most important sources of clean water.”

Here’s the full text of Symons’ testimony:

Symons Testimony May 23 2011