Two senators are urging officials to conduct a study on the potential health impacts the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could bring to the United States.
Senator Barbara Boxer of California, along with Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, insisted the oil that would be brought from Canada into the U.S. will surely endanger citizens' health during a news conference on Wednesday, according to CBC News.
Boxer and Whitehouse appeared alongside Alberta physician John O'Connor for the media meeting in Washington.
Dr. O'Connor announced during the conference that some carcinogens coming from the oil sands are detrimental to human health, and could even be linked to some cases of cancer in areas close to the field in Fort Chipewyan.
O'Connor stressed the importance of testing the cancer cases occurring in the northern Alberta city, most of which are either severe or rare kinds of the disease.
"Health miseries follow the tarsands from extraction to transport to refining to waste disposal," Boxer said, adding that the government should pay closer attention to the health issues at hand rather than focusing on the financial benefit of moving the Keystone pipeline into the United States.
O'Connor said he was concerned by the "callous indifference" exhibited by legislators who overlook the health issues of citizens living downstream from the oil sands.
The pipeline, which would move crude oil from Alberta to Nebraska, requires approval from the POTUS since it crosses United States and Canadian borders.
"I ask today: how many more Americans with asthma will we see, and is that in the national interest? How are more Americans with cancer in the national interest?" Boxer said. "Children and families in the U.S. have a right to know now before any decision to approve the Keystone tarsands pipeline is made, how it would affect their health. This press conference is about waking up America to the fact more tarsands coming into this country, and right away with the Keystone pipeline you have 45 percent [more oil], is a danger to the health of our people."
A TransCanada spokesperson told CBC by email that a Royal Society of Canada-backed study from 2010 "concluded that there is currently no credible evidence that contaminants from the oil sands are boosting cancer levels in downstream communities."
