Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Director International Program, Washington, D.C.

President Obama is speaking about energy this week. He has a lot of important things to say about the very real need to move forward with renewable energy and fuel efficiency, and he has committed to ending subsidies to the oil industry. However, he will also be promoting new oil pipeline infrastructure in the US and there is one proposed pipeline that needs to be called out as different from the others. The Canadian company TransCanada has split its reapplication for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in two. The proposed southern segment of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is one of the possible pipelines to bring oil from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast. But the oil that it will bring is likely to be mostly tar sands oil from Canada, not U.S. oil. This means additional health and safety concerns from pipeline oil spills, as well as concerns for additional pollution in refining communities in the Gulf. Don’t be fooled – tar sands is not your Granddaddy’s oil.

Splitting the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline doesn’t make it any better – not for our energy independence, not for oil prices and certainly not for our health and our environment. Keystone XL in any form would actually undermine national security and increase oil prices by reducing the amount of oil in the Midwest and sending tar sands oil overseas, as this NRDC report shows.  Similarly, a report just out from Cornell University shows that the potential environmental and economic risks from a pipeline spill – regardless of whether it happens in the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska, the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer in Texas or in the Red River and its tributaries along the Texas-Oklahoma border.

As for what will actually be moving on Keystone XL’s southern route: TransCanada has made commitments to transport approximately 600,000 barrels a day (bpd) of crude. Of this, TransCanada has said that 380,000 bpd is for Canadian crude – most if not all of which will likely be tar sands. Even if the southern segment is built before the northern segment is completed, TransCanada’s first Keystone pipeline carrying raw tar sands ends in Cushing, Oklahoma and would be bringing raw tar sands right into the southern segment of Keystone XL.  In fact, TransCanada had already committed to move another 155,000 bpd of Canadian crude from the first Keystone pipeline terminus in Cushing to the Gulf Coast refineries. That means that of 600,000 bpd committed capacity of Keystone XL’s southern segment, 535,000 bpd is meant for Canadian crude. In other words, around 90 percent of what will flow in the southern segment of Keystone XL is likely to be tar sands. For more detail see the final environmental impact statement on the Keystone XL project, pages 2-4.

Don’t think a leak could happen? Think again. The first Keystone tar sands pipeline has leaked repeatedly ever since it was constructed – at least 14 times in its first year of operation just in the United States. Along the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, residents are still cleaning up from a July 2010 break of another tar sands pipeline operated by Enbridge Energy that sent close to a million gallons of tar sands oil into the river. About 40 miles of the river is still closed today as cleanup of the most expensive pipeline disaster in U.S. history is ongoing.

Americans have resoundingly said they don’t want another tar sands pipeline. Not in the northern half of our country; not in the southern half of our country. During a single day in February, for instance, Americans sent more than 800,000 messages to their members of Congress condemning the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project.

And President Obama said about the decision to conduct additional review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline back in November 2011: “Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood.” This statement should hold true equally for the ranchers and landowners along the northern part of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, as for those in Oklahoma and Texas.