Rayola Dougher | 202.682.8114| dougherr@api.org
WASHINGTON, March 4, 2011 – A group of over 60 U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Navy veterans sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today expressing concern for America’s energy security and urging the State Department to expeditiously approve the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which would bring Canadian oil to U.S. Gulf coast refineries.
The veterans said that “[h]aving dedicated our lives to protecting and serving this great country, we feel it is incumbent upon us to reinforce how vital the Keystone XL Pipeline is to reducing America’s dependence on oil from less stable regions of the world.
“One only needs to consider the recent events unfolding in the Middle East to understand the vulnerabilities our nation faces and the need for a more domestic, secure supply of oil from a friendly and reliable trading partner such as Canada.”
“This is an important project that will strengthen our nation’s energy security and open the door to hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” said Marty Durbin, executive vice president of API. “At a time when our economic recovery is still fragile and state and federal budgets are strained, the expansion of Canadian oil development and trade with the U.S. has the potential to add tens of billions of dollars to America’s gross domestic product and deliver millions more in revenue to our government. Given current global uncertainty we need to do more to boost energy production here at home. This pipeline will help us accomplish that goal.”
The Keystone XL Pipeline project has been under review by the State Department in consultation with 10 federal agencies for the past two years awaiting a final environmental impact statement before reaching a decision. Once approved, the 1,959 mile pipeline expansion project is designed to bring more than a million barrels a day of Canadian oil to U.S. refineries.
API represents more than 450 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports more than 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.5 percent of the U.S. economy, and, since 2000, has invested nearly $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.
For more information about the pipeline project, go to Oil-Sands.