ForestEthics said production from Canadian oil sands, alsoknown as tar sands, generates up to five times more greenhousegas emissions than conventional oil. It said this conflictswith President Obama’s pledge to tackle global warming. “Oil from the tar sands is one of the world’s dirtiest,”the group’s executive director, Todd Paglia, said in a letterto Clinton. “For the U.S., continued dependence on tar sandsoil would impair plans to reduce our carbon footprint in theshort and long term.” Canada is the biggest foreign oil supplier to the UnitedStates and Canada’s oil sands are the largest crude depositsoutside the Middle East.

The group urged Clinton to deny permits for pipelines thatwould move the oil to U.S refineries, particularly the AlbertaClipper pipeline. The State Department has a say in pipelinesthat would cross the U.S border. Enbridge Energy Partners LP’s (EEP.N) 1,000-mile(1,610-kilometre) pipeline would be able to carry 450,000barrels of tar sands crude oil a day from Alberta, Canada toSuperior, Wisconsin. The oil would then be sent to U.S.refineries to be processed into petroleum products such asgasoline and diesel fuel The U.S portion would be 326 miles long and cost $1.2billion If approved, it would be operational in mid 2010. Enbridge spokeswoman Denise Hamsher said the StateDepartment’s decision is based on a pipeline, not on oilproduction that occurs in Canada where it does not havejurisdiction.

“What would the Midwest do without that supply?” askedHamsher, who pointed out that 1 million barrels a day inCanadian sands oil is already exported to the United States. State Department spokesman Andrew Laine said the AlbertaClipper pipeline project was under review “and it is prematureto comment while the review process is ongoing.” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said this month thattechnology will help solve the environmental problems connectedwith Canada’s oil sands production. But ForestEthics saidtechnology will not be able to overcome human health hazardsassociated with oil sands production. “In Alberta, where most of the Canadian tar sandsoperations are currently located, there are elevated rates ofcancer in downstream communities,” the group said. Travis Davies, spokesman for the Canadian Association ofPetroleum Producers, said studies have not cited a link betweenoil sands and cancer in nearby communities. Davies acknowledged that oil sands production causes highergreenhouse gas emissions, but not at the rate five times higherclaimed by ForestEthics.

He said the full life-cycle emissions from oil sands –production, transport, refining and end use — is only 5 to 15percent more than oil imported from Saudi Arabia and aboutequal to oil from Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria and evenCalifornia. Still, ForestEthics protested outside the State Departmenton Wednesday by giving passersby the chance to smell glassvials of the tar sands that are labeled “dirty oil by any othername would be as risky.” The group joined with the Sierra Club to raise theirconcerns about Canadian tar sands to U.S. lawmakers by takingout a full-page ad in a prominent Capitol Hill newspaper.The political-based cartoon shows a young girl worried abouta huge pipeline, labeled “World’s Dirtiest Oil” at theU.S.-Canadian border, and asking Secretary Clinton: “Is this myclean energy future?” The ad can be seen at the group’s website”Secretary Clinton now has an opportunity to show thatAmerica is a global leader in the clean energy economy. It’ssimply not in our national interest to allow this project tomove forward,” said Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope.