Right now, while our whole nation is working together to move into a clean energy economy, a massive dirty energy project is threatening to sneak across our border virtually undetected.

It’s called the Alberta tar sands, and it's quietly making its way into our country, pipeline by pipeline, refinery by refinery, permit by permit. But it is one single, massive project planned and executed by Big Oil and its allies in Canada’s government.

The Alberta tar sands have been called the most destructive project on Earth—and with good reason. Extraction of tar sands oil requires draining lakes and wetlands, diverting streams and rivers, and clear cutting boreal forest. Toxic tar sands tailings ponds are so large that they can be seen from space. Just last year, hundreds of ducks were found dead after landing in one of the ponds, and scientists say the whole project could claim as many as 160 million birds.

But the most troubling thing about tar sands oil is its massive contribution to global warming. Producing a single barrel of oil from the tar sands creates three times more global warming pollution than a barrel of conventional oil.

A major piece of this project—the Alberta Clipper pipeline—is up for approval by the U.S. State Department in just two weeks.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now in a position to make the call about whether or not to approve the pipeline. Approving this project would undermine our international climate leadership. It would perpetuate our addiction to oil and pollute our air and water. It would threaten the Great Lakes, the Northern Plains, and important tribal land with potential spills, industrialization of farmlands, and air pollution. One single refinery proposed to process the tar sands oil in South Dakota would emit more greenhouse gases than any other oil refinery ever built in America.

Farmers in South Dakota, ranchers in Montana, tribes in Minnesota, and regular citizens throughout the Midwest have voiced concerns about the safety of the pipelines and have called on the Obama administration not to allow them to move forward.

If we allow this massive project into the United States, it will chain us to a dirty energy infrastructure for decades to come--just when we are finally moving into a clean energy economy.

Tar sands oil has no place in America's clean energy economy.  Secretary Clinton can protect our national interest—and show that America is a global leader in the fight against climate change—by not granting permits for these pipelines.

Learn more about the Tar Sands on Celsias:

Natives to Congress: "The Oil Sands Are Killing Us"
Dirty Canadian Oil vs. America's Green Economy

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