API calls on administration to approve Keystone XL Pipeline

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2011 – API urged approval of the Keystone XL pipeline in its comments on the State Department’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement. API emphasized the proposed pipeline, which would operate using state-of-the-art technology, would have little impact on the environment and would deliver substantial employment and energy security benefits.

“We hope this process brings us one step closer to project approval,” said API Executive Vice President Marty Durbin. “We urge the State Department to reach a favorable decision on the pipeline as soon as possible. The pipeline’s construction and operation would mean many thousands of new U.S. jobs, a substantial increase in government revenue, and the means to significantly enhance our nation’s energy security.”

The Keystone XL pipeline would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands region to U.S. refineries.

“We have a critical decision to make,” Durbin added. “We can approve this pipeline and gain access to large amounts of highly secure oil that we know our nation will be consuming in the years ahead. Or we can let our friends to the north find other markets, which they will easily do. There is no environmental advantage to that, and it would prevent many thousands of high-wage U.S. jobs from being created.”

API represents more than 470 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers more than $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested more than $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.