Clinton tackled for oilsands comments

Senators from both parties criticized U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for signalling likely support for a $7-billion pipeline to carry Canadian oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

Senators Mike Johanns and Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jeff Merkley of Oregon called Clinton's comments premature and damaging to the integrity of the federal review process. The legislators cautioned Clinton to consider all sides before deciding whether to grant a permit allowing TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline to cross the U.S.-Canadian border.

Clinton stirred up controversy on both sides of the border last week after saying she was "inclined" to back the project, which would carry crude oil nearly 3,200 kilometres from the oilsands in Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas, via Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

"We're either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada," Clinton said after an Oct. 15 speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. "And 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," the U.S. will remain dependent on oil, she said.

The massive pipeline network — about five times the length of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline — is projected to move up to 1.1 million barrels of Canadian oil each day to U.S. refineries.

Holy hand grenades!

A pipeline which would carry crude oil nearly 3,200 kilometres from the oilsands in Alberta to Port Arthur, Texas, via Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Don't you think it would be better to build a refinery in Montana and forgo all this pipeline fackery?

And why the hell are we buying foreign oil if we can send a million barrels of oil daily to the States?

I guess this is another one of those puzzling episodes which in a hundred years time our offspring will look back and either laugh themselves into hysteria or curse their fore fathers while trying to keep 200 pound cockroaches out of the house.