Calgary — U.S. President Barack Obama should stop sending mixed messages on oilsands and “sign the bloody order” approving the Keystone XL pipeline, Alberta Energy Minister Ron Liepert charged Thursday.

“Frankly, I wish he’d get on with action,” Liepert said when asked to respond to remarks by Obama in Washington on Wednesday.

“I saw where he said they need to study the science; I don’t know what they’re studying. We could give him all the briefing he needs and it would take him 15 minutes to read about it, so I just wish he’d sign the bloody order and get on with it.”

Obama broke his silence on the pipeline Wednesday to say: “These tarsands, there are some environmental questions about how destructive they are, potentially, what are the dangers there, and we’ve got to examine all those questions.”

The remarks come close on the heels of an editorial in the influential New York Times that urged the U.S. government to block TransCanada Corp.’s $7-billion project, designed to transport more than half a million barrels a day of primarily oilsands crude to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Approval has been delayed since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked the State Department to conduct a supplemental environmental impact study to address concerns about pipeline safety and the impact on climate change of oilsands production.

The State Department, which has the authority to issue or deny a presidential permit for construction of the pipeline because it crosses an international boundary, last month ordered the new study and has announced a period of public comment this spring.

Liepert said approval of the pipeline is critical for Alberta’s growing oilsands industry.

“We know what our production is going to be by 2020 and if we don’t have either increased access to the U.S. Gulf Coast or a pipeline to the West Coast of Canada, we’re going to be a province that’s landlocked in bitumen,” he warned.

Murray Smith, a former Alberta energy minister and provincial representative in Washington, said Obama is clearly being influenced by environmentalists but the internal politics swirling around his declared intention to seek a second term are also at work.

“I think the Obama strategy now is to put everything up in the air pending a final decision ... I know the State Department is thoroughly concerned that an agency, namely the EPA, is dictating policy to them, a full cabinet post, so there’s conflict in there.”

Both Smith and Liepert pointed out that oilsands crude is preferable to crude from the Middle East and Africa, where American troops are involved in wars and environmental practices are often lacking.

“I think at the end of the day, common sense, rationality and the desire to protect American lives will override the rhetoric and the New York Times,” said Smith.

“Canadian crude trades at a discount to the oil they’re buying now. Their gas prices would be cheaper if the Keystone XL is built and they were refining it on the coast.”

Liepert added there are thousands of jobs in the U.S. that will be created by the pipeline.

He said the province is doing everything it can to sway opinion in the U.S., but conceded that former Washington rep Gary Mar’s return to Alberta to vie for the leadership of the Alberta Tory party leaves the province lacking a strong voice in the U.S. capital.

dhealing@calgaryherald.com