Keystone XLCanada addresses environmental concerns over Keystone XL

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper sent a letter to President Barack Obama last month offering to participate in joint efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in order to win approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed 1,179-mile, 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline beginning in Hardisty, Alberta, and extending south to Steele City, Nebraska. From Nebraska the oil will flow to Wood River, Illinois, Cushing, Oklahoma, and Port Arthur, Louisiana.

Environmentalists want Obama to reject the pipeline project because of its contribution to global warming. Bloomberg News reports that Harper’s offer may allow Obama to approve the project without having to confront environmental groups.

“We recognize that climate change is a global issue and we are always willing to work together with other jurisdictions to accomplish common goals,” Diana McQueen, Alberta’s minister of environment and sustainable resource development, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. “A North American strategy is important for both Canada and the United States to maintain strong environmental protection, job creation, economic growth and energy security.”

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports that the White house has not responded to Harper’s letter, and that the plan for the two leaders to discuss the issue at the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia was sideline by the discussion on Syria.

Shawn Howard, a spokesman for TransCanada, the pipeline operator, says the Canadian government has been a strong ambassador for the pipeline project. “As a country, Canada has a great track record on the environment –- and is the only country that the U.S. currently imports oil from that has substantial greenhouse-gas emissions regulations in place,” Howard said. He insisted that “Despite the rhetoric from the professional activists, Keystone XL will move oil long distances with almost no direct emissions.”