Keystone XL Exec: To Support Dirty Tar Sands Is To Support 'American Values' [View all]

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/20-6



Alex Pourbaix, president of oil pipelines and energy at TransCanada.

Keystone XL Exec: To Support Dirty Tar Sands Is To Support 'American Values'
- Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Wednesday, February 20, 2013 by Common Dreams

Following comments made at an industry roundtable with reporters on Tuesday, Sierra Club president Michael Brune said that 'no fact or truth' would penetrate the wall of denial put up by the world's oil and pipeline company executives or their lobbyists.

Asked about the 'Forward on Climate' rally in Washington, DC on Sunday that organizers say brought close to 50,000 people out in opposition to the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, Alex Pourbaix, president of oil pipelines and energy at TransCanada, said: “My experience is the events over the weekend are not getting nearly the coverage in the media they would have a year, year and a half ago. So I’m of the view that the temperature is going down on this issue.”

~snip~

Revealing the industry's clear public relations strategy at the roundtable, the oil industry reps pushed the oft-repeated canard about 'job creation' with Pourbaix going even further by saying that supporting the tar sands project was synonymous with supporting 'American values.'

"Approval of Keystone XL hinges on one fundamental fact," proffered the Transcanada exec. "Does the U.S. want its oil from a friendly neighbor in Canada and domestic sources like the Bakken play, or does it want to continue to import higher-priced foreign oil from nations that do not support U.S. values - it is that simple."