Providing For Consideration of H.R. 5682, Approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Floor Speech

I rise today in opposition to the passage of the rule and H.R. 5682, the underlying bill. You first have to consider the opinion of the world's undisputed foremost climatologist, former NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, the guru on this subject, Betty Crocker, Good Housekeeping Seal, one of the first scientists to warn of the dangers of burning carbon fuel.

Dr. Hansen is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and he has likened the building and the use of the Keystone XL pipeline to the lighting of ``the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet'' and nothing less.

"The fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet,'' that is Dr. Hansen. Dr. Hansen has warned the completion of this pipeline will only reinforce our dependence on fossil fuels, not strengthen our Nation's energy independence, as has been argued by some of my friends on the other side.

When you brush aside the studies funded by TransCanada and other oil companies and you analyze the pure scientific studies that have no political motivation, every analysis clearly demonstrates that the Keystone XL pipeline poses major threats at every turn, in extraction, in transportation, in refining, and in consumption.

Nationwide, about 3.2 million gallons of oil spill from pipelines every year. Spills such as those pollute drinking water, ruin American farmland, potentially destroy sacred tribal grounds, and create an uninhabitable environment for our own homeowners.

In fact, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, there was a spill in 2010 of tar sands oil that cost $1.2 billion and years and years and years to clean up. That is where the permanent jobs are going to be created, in cleaning up the spillage, and that is not the kind of jobs the American people want.

Building the pipeline carries the dirtiest oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and is exactly the opposite of addressing climate change, which is what we should be doing today, and most of this oil will not go to America, but will go through America, endangering mid-America, and be exported overseas. There are no export restrictions on nondomestic crudes.

H.R. 5682 is a special interest earmark that will make the U.S. a permanent conduit to international markets for one of the dirtiest fuel sources on the planet.

My colleague and friend says that we are going to be helping our friend. Yes, Canada is our friend. We play hockey with them, basketball, whatever; but this oil is going to go to our other friend, China. This is about Canada shipping oil through America and endangering American lands to supply the Chinese with oil.

The Keystone XL proponents like to talk about these jobs it would create, but the vast majority are temporary. The permanent jobs measure but 35, and as I said, the permanent jobs will really be cleanup.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman from Tennessee has expired.

Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 45 seconds.

Mr. COHEN. As was mentioned by Mr. Polis, these jobs are important if they are in transportation infrastructure. That creates real jobs in this country, getting goods to market, and my friends on the other side have resisted transportation infrastructure jobs.

Clean energy is permanent jobs. Wind and solar are permanent jobs. The only permanent jobs are the cleanups. When the U.S. and China have come together in historic agreement is not the time to light the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.

For these and other countless reasons, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' It is time to return our focus to an issue that centers on true energy independence through renewable sources and greener, domestic energy production.

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