CEA joins State Department, Premier of Alberta, Top U.S. and Canadian Energy Experts for North American Energy Security Summit at Canadian Embassy
WASHINGTON – May 7, 2010 America’s historic and ongoing partnership with Canada on issues related to energy security, affordability, and reliability is a “model” for other nations to follow, a senior advisor from the U.S. State Department said today at the Canadian Embassy – and according to Alberta premier Ed Stelmach, Canada stands ready, willing and eager to build upon that existing relationship and leverage those resources into jobs, security and opportunity on both sides of the border.
“Canada is our closest trading partner in the world, and our most important strategic ally in the hemisphere,” said Michael Whatley, vice president of Consumer Energy Alliance and a panelist at today’s summit. “Energy isn’t merely incidental to that relationship; it’s fundamental to it. No nation in the world sends more energy to the United States each day than Canada. And if we expect to have even a fighting chance at reducing our nation’s dangerous dependence on far-away, unstable energy in the future, Canadian energy will have to play an even more active role in helping us get there.”
This morning’s summit, hosted by the Center for North American Energy Security (CNAES) and held at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., drew the participation of a number of U.S. and Canadian experts on energy, the economy and the environment – addressing issues ranging from the capacity and permitting of local pipelines, to federal procurement rules for accessing oil sands-derived energy, all the way through to the political debate surrounding the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), a policy that would severely restrict American access to secure and affordable sources of energy from Canada.
Addressing the summit earlier today, both Stelmach and senior U.S. State Department official David Goldwyn agreed that the energy resources made available to U.S. consumers today by way of the oil sands have strengthened our nations’ existing strategic partnership and contributed to robust economic development both in Canada and here in the United States. Stelmach additionally provided summit-goers with an update on the latest technological advances being deployed to develop the oil sands in an environmentally sensitive way, technology that has helped producers reduce the sands’ carbon emissions by nearly 40 percent over the past two decades.
Added Tom Corcoran, executive director of CNAES and a former member of Congress from Illinois: “As the energy and climate change debate continues to take shape in the U.S., policymakers should remember the 2.5 million barrels of petroleum Canada sends the United States each and every day — and the unique role that Canada plays both as America’s largest fuel supplier and its closest friend.”
