Who wants Canada’s oil?
There have recently been reports in the press and over the airwaves that a powerful U.S. House Democrat, Henry Waxman, is launching a strong campaign to block a pipeline that would deliver oil to Texas refineries from Alberta’s Oil Sands. The objection centers on such a source of energy being excessively “dirty” from an environmental standpoint. This is a deeply hypocritical argument. It ignores the strides that Oil Sands producers have made to ensure that their product is extracted as cleanly as possible, with further research into improved technologies underway. On that score, the industry has launched an information and advertising effort throughout the media to get its side of the story into the broader public domain. Plus there is the potential for new technological discoveries and sophisticated research jobs in the areas of cleaner bitumen extraction. The argument also conveniently overlooks U.S. failings when it comes to energy generation. Leaving aside BP in the Gulf, there are
