Maine Town Weighs Crude Oil Ban

By Maria Gallucci - A small town in southern Maine is throwing a wrench in the oil industry’s plans to increase the flow of Canadian tar sands crude.

On Monday night, South Portland’s city council is expected to approve a ban on the export of crude oil from the local waterfront. The ordinance would effectively prevent the possibility of using an existing Maine-to-Montreal pipeline to ship Canadian crude into the U.S. Northeast for export.

The vote follows a year-and-a-half long campaign by residents, city officials and local environmental groups who say they are worried that piping tar sands crude – a particularly heavy and carbon-intensive form of oil – into South Portland would dirty the air, contaminate the water and increase emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

For oil companies, the ordinance has two major implications. First, it will likely galvanize efforts by local opponents and national environmental groups to stop proposed pipeline projects like the Keystone XL, which would carry tar sands crude over 1,179 miles from Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing segment to the Texas Gulf Coast. In Nebraska, a groundswell of community opposition has helped create significant delays for TransCanada Corp., the pipeline’s builder.

The South Portland measure “will be seen across the industry as a shot in the arm for people opposing the dramatic expansion of tar sands,” Dave Stember, a national organizer at the climate advocacy group 350.org, told International Business Times. 350.org is a member of the Tar Sands Free Northeast, a loose coalition of green groups. “This is a very encouraging sign that we’re seeing at the local level.”

Second, the ordinance limits oil companies’ options for getting their supplies of tar sands crude out of the landlocked Alberta province. The lack of transportation pipelines is creating a bottleneck that is driving down prices for Canadian crude and forcing developers to scale back their expansion efforts. In May, for instance, French energy giant Total SA decided to shelve an $11 billion tar sands mine because of the rising cost pressures.

The 236-mile Maine-to-Montreal pipeline currently moves conventional crude oil from South Portland to Canadian refineries, but its owner, Portland-Montreal Pipe Line had previously floated plans to reverse the flow to carry tar sands crude. The oil industry has threatened to oppose the effort. In December, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the industry's main lobbyist, sent the city council a five-page letter warning of legal challenges.

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"Maine is just another example of radical activists inserting their off-oil agenda into local politics, putting jobs and energy security at risk," API spokeswoman Sabrina Fang said in an e-mailed statement. "This is not the American way. We need to stand up for the middle class and protect their jobs."