20 October 2010

Tar Sands Pipeline Likely to Be Approved by Obama Administration

The Hill reports that the Obama Administration is set to approve a pipeline from Canada's tar sands in Alberta to Texas refineries for petroleum from tar sands:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears poised to approve a
 controversial TransCanada pipeline carrying tar-sands-based crude oil
 from Alberta, Canada, to Texas despite pushback from House Democrats 
and environmental groups.



Clinton has indicated that the State Department “is inclined” to grant 
approval for the pipeline, which has come under intense scrutiny over 
its potential impact on water quality and wildlife.



“We haven’t finished all of the analysis,” Clinton told a crowd at the 
Commonwealth Club in San Francisco Friday evening. “But we are 
inclined to do so.”

 She said the U.S. is “either going to be dependent on dirty oil from 
the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada.

That will continue to be the case “until we can get our act together as a country and figure out that clean, renewable energy is in both our economic interests and the interests of our planet,” she said.

“It's a very hard balancing act,” she said. “But … energy security requires that I look at all of the factors that we have to consider while we try to expedite as much as we can America's move toward clean, renewable energy.”


 Anyone wanting to keep track of that expediting can see recent US decarbonization data here.