Comparative Pipeline Politics: Oil Sands Pipeline Controversies in Canada and the United States

• Main Authors: George Hoberg, Andrea Rivers, Geoff Salomons
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Overview; Canada; First Nations
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.455.7327; http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2012/Hoberg.pdf

Over the past decade, energy policy has become increasingly controversial in Canada and the United States, with Canada’s oil sands emerging as a major flashpoint of controversy. Canada’s oil sands have been the engine driving the Canadian economic growth over the past decade, and have become an increasingly important part of US oil supply. However, the intensive extraction process has significant environmental impacts in terms of water quantity and quality, land use disturbance, and air pollution including greenhouse gas emissions. This paper will compare energy-environment policy and governance in Canada and the United States through a case study of two controversial oil sands pipelines: Keystone XL to the US Gulf Coast, and Northern Gateway to British Columbia’s West Coast. Both cases have become nationally prominent and been front-page news as a result of conflicting concerns over jobs, energy security, access to markets, the environmental risk of pipelines (and tankers in the BC case), and greenhouse gases. President Obama became directly involved in the US decision, provoking conflict with a Republican controlled House of Representatives. With Canadian environmentalists and many affected First Nations adamantly opposed, Canada’s prime minister has actively supported the Northern Gateway pipeline and his Natural Resources minister has referred to it as “nation-building, ” and the pipeline has emerged as a major