Pressure Drops, But Not On Canada

Kenny Bruno is campaign director at Corporate Ethics International and the U.S. Coordinator for the No Tar Sands Oil Campaign.

“Pressure, O pressure, O yeah pressure drop a drop on you.” –Toots and the Maytals

The cliché about dark clouds and silver linings must have been coined by environmentalists.

The Enbridge tar sands oil spill in Michigan was a very dark cloud, especially coming on the heels of the BP Deepwater disaster. The on-land and at-sea one-two punch of the BP and Enbridge mega-spills put pressure on the oil company TransCanada to show that, unlike other oil pipelines, its proposed cross-continental Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is safe.

The silver lining is that TransCanada reacted to this pressure by reducing the pressure at which oil would be pumped through the Keystone XL pipeline. This is a bit like an executioner sharpening the guillotine blade less frequently. Still, the lower pressure will allow less crude to be pump, and thus is a material victory for the growing movement against the expansion of the dirtiest and most expensive oil on earth: the Canadian tar sands.

TransCanada did not make this decision because of a sudden realization that its pipeline might leak – they already knew that. What actually happened was that the company was informed – probably by the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) – that it would not receive the safety waiver to pump at higher than normal pressure. So they withdrew the application. No one is under an illusion that TransCanada’s withdrawal of the safety waiver application is anything other than a maneuver to preserve the political viability of the pipeline, and in fact a second waiver, to build the pipeline using thinner steel, is still in play.

Still, it’s heartening to see the heartland being looked after, albeit half-heartedly, by the DOI and pro-oil Senators. Enbridge and BP seem to have given certain policymakers a sudden insight: Skimping on safety for an oil pipeline running across six states and over the most important source of fresh water in the Midwest might be a really bad idea.

Speaking of bad ideas, the entire Keystone XL pipeline is an unnecessary and dangerous step backward and should not be built, at low pressure or otherwise. The opposition to Keystone XL will not be softened by the lower pressure; in fact, activists say they are encouraged by the effect they are having and will press for the State Department to reject the entire project. (Sign the petition to tell them this here.)

The Canadian Connection

There’s a certain poetic justice to TransCanada’s paying for the sins of Enbridge, as these two corporations are the Canadian evil twins of reckless tar sands expansion. Enbridge is building the Alberta Clipper pipeline across Minnesota; TransCanada recently finished the Keystone I pipeline through the Dakotas and on down to Oklahoma. Enbridge longs to open the Asian market to tar sands oil via the Northern Gateway pipeline to British Columbia; TransCanada covets the U.S. Northeast and European markets via the Keystone XL pipeline to Texas.

The Canadian connection provides tar sands, one of the most destructive projects on earth, with some positive stereotypes. Most U.S. citizens probably think that Canadians are nice, the government is a stalwart U.S. ally, and the countryside is a vast scenic wilderness, if a bit on the snowy side. At the diplomatic level, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would like to reward Canada by buying more of its oil and punish Hugo Chavez by buying less from Venezuela.

But unless Canada changes its ways, Secretary Clinton and the rest of U.S. will eventually notice that Canada (of all places!) has become a sort of petro-state, in which the interests of Big Oil, and most of all the tar sands industry, drive national policy. Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is from Alberta, has spearheaded Canada’s retro attitude on climate, winning sarcastic awards for Fossil of the Day, Week and Year at international climate negotiations and earning the enmity of clean energy advocates in Canada and Europe. Even the provinces of Ontario and Quebec are fed up with the special treatment for the Alberta tar sands. If the populous provinces and Liberal opposition party cannot exert enough pressure, then the U.S., as the sole major foreign market for Canadian oil, must insist that Canada rein in and clean up the tar sands industry.

The pipeline pressure has dropped, but the pressure on Canada has just started ramping up.

Photo Credit: The Pembina Institute

Follow Change.org's Environment page on Facebook and Twitter.