Douglas A.

Grandt

510-432-1452 April 19, 2013

U.S. Department of State Attn: Genevieve Walker, NEPA Coordinator 2201 C Street NW, Room 2726 Washington, D.C. 20520
Re: U.S. Department of State hearing on Keystone XL - my testimony Dear Ms. Walker, I would like to express thanks to the Department of State for conducting an excellent public hearing in Grand Island yesterday. Theresa did an magnificent job keeping it on schedule, and in spite of her expert demeanor, we went on into the night, finishing at almost precisely 11:00 pm -- three hours of overtime in an excellent venue. My intended comments follow because I am not quite sure the court reporters or the staff understood that I intended my prepared oral testimony to be entered as written testimony. My extemporaneous oral comments were intended to supplement my prepared oral comments, including the following which I simply did not have time to mention: Thank you to Mr. Corey Goulet, TransCanada Vice President of the Keystone Pipeline Project, as he specifically testified that the Alberta tarsands would provide desperately needed feed stock to refineries in the Gulf. The clear implication is that the Keystone XL pipeline is all about keeping refineries in the Gulf operating and maximizing profit levels. They require the Canadian tarsands as feed stock, lest the flow of feed stock falls below operational minimum levels, which would be the trigger for scheduling their retirement, shutting them down and dismantling them. Without refineries demanding more feed stock, the Keystone XL pipeline is unnecessary. The unstated premise is that Management would rather continue operating with any feed stock and make investments to upgrade processes than retire any refinery, as the latter alternative is not in their personal and corporate profit growth paradigm. The Keystone XL pipeline explicitly supports the refineries and their continued existence for the next several decades as their Management commit to making more investments in keeping them operating at the expense of perpetuating and accelerating carbon emissions and all the ramifications of increasing the greenhouse warming of the planet. Please enter this and the attachments into the record on my behalf. Sincerely yours,

U.S. Department of State Keystone XL Pipeline Public Hearing Heartland Events Center -- Fonner Park 700 East Stolley Park Road, Grand Island, NE 68801 Comments by Douglas Grandt -- April 18, 2013 Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Keystone XL Pipeline permit application. Keystone XL and the tarsand bitumen that it is intended to transport have no redeeming value. We need to start dismantling the hydrocarbon infrastructure, not expand it. I will explain. My name is Douglas Grandt (GRANDT). I will elaborate on written comments already submitted. Since October 2012, I am a FORMER RESIDENT of Hayward, California. I am in the process of resettling in Nebraska, which is where my familys roots have been embedded for 150 years. First, a brief history to put the issue of Keystone XL into perspective: My mothers parents and grandparents were farmers in Knox County, 150 miles north of here. My grandmother Mary was born in the little town of Center in 1895. She and my grandfather Joe, my mother Pauline, and her two sisters Mae and Gladys lived with my great-grandmother Helen in a farmhouse near Center, which is just outside the Santee Sioux reservation. In the 1920s and 1930s, my mother thrived in the company of all the neighbors who came to Grandmas cafe for homemade meals and her famous pies. I am here to defend the land of my ancestors for the many reasons you will hear today. I am also here to defend all of humanity and thousands of species now becoming extinct from our releasing carbon pollution at an accelerating rate from burning more and more hydrocarbon fuels. It is well understood that our carbon footprint today is orders of magnitude greater than that of the three generations who lived under that one farmhouse rooftop in Center a hundred years ago. World population has increased six-fold since 1850 when my great-grandmother was born. World population has more than quadrupled since my grandmother and mother were born in Center in 1895 and 1922. It has tripled in my 65 years. My great-grandmother had no electricity, no gas oven, no oil heat, no car. There were no jetliners. She had essentially a zero carbon footprint. Compare that to your and my carbon footprint, today. We are on the brink of a climate disaster -- tipping points loom in the Arctic and in the oceans. We must begin to reduce our net carbon emissions, not just reduce carbons rate of growth. We must drop everything and shift energy investments from carbon fuels to renewable energy. Excavating the tarsands and building the Keystone XL pipeline take us in the wrong direction. Tarsands, diluted bitumen, excavation, processing, and Keystone XL have no redeeming value. Thank you.

U.S. Department of State Keystone XL Pipeline Public Hearing Heartland Events Center -- Fonner Park 700 East Stolley Park Road, Grand Island, NE 68801 Comments by Douglas Grandt -- April 18, 2013 Written comment previously submitted Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Keystone XL. This is a very important issue. Keystone XL pipeline has no redeeming value Keystone XL will bring essentially no benet to the U.S. Keystone XL will bring liabilities. Keystone XL will lock us in to 50-years of a bad decision. Who will pay the piper? Tarsands bitumen has no redeeming value CO2 emissions will exceed past fossil fuel emissions. CO2 emissions will accelerate climate tipping points. CO2 emissions will exacerbate ooding & drought. CO2 emissions will strengthen hurricanes and rains. CO2 emissions will decrease available potable water. CO2 emissions will increase heat-waves and wildres. CO2 emissions will be game over for the climate. Tarsands extraction has no redeeming value Extraction destroys the habitats of people and animals. Extraction destroys ecosystem, livelihood and culture. Extraction destroys the boreal forest carbon sink. Tarsands processing has no redeeming value Processing leaves toxic water on the landscape. Processed toxic ponds attract migrating birds. Processed toxic waters seep and leak into rivers. Processed toxic water causes mutations in sh. Processed toxic water destroys food sources. Processed toxic water causes people to die of cancer. For all the reasons enumerated by countless other people of conscience I believe that the Keystone XL pipeline and the tarsand diluted bitumen that it is proposed to transport have no redeeming value and degrade U.S. national security. Thank you.