Environmentalists take aim at Alberta's Tar Sands

I wish the press and environmentalists wouldn't call CO2 pollution...it's not.

Alberta's oilsands came under fire in Washington, D.C. yesterday, with environmentalists protesting the visit of deputy premier Ron Stevens and demanding a ban on "dirty oil" be enforced.

The National Resource Defense Council, which claims 1.3 million members across the U.S., bought an ad in the widely read Capitol Hill Roll Call newspaper, featuring a Maple Leaf oozing oil. It also slammed an Alberta government decision to spend $25 million on a public relations campaign to promote its green plan.

"Touting Alberta's commitment to environmental sustainability through the development of the oilsands is ludicrous," said the NRDC's Liz Barratt-Brown. "Development of oilsands has received widespread criticism due to the enormous amounts of global warming and toxic pollution it creates."

The group said Stevens's visit is an attempt to lobby the U.S. federal government to exempt the tarsands from Section 256 of the recently passed Energy Independence and Security Act.

Under that law, passed last year, federal agencies are banned from buying synthetic fuels - which could include synthetic fuel draw from tar sands bitumen - that have a higher lifecycle of greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels.