WE, your Memorialists, the Members of the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Maine now assembled in the Second Regular Session, most respectfully present and petition the President and the Congress of the United States as follows:

WHEREAS,  the United States Department of Health and Human Services decreased federal funding to the Low-income Home Energy Assistance Program, bringing Maine's current total to less than $37 million, compared to $56.5 million the State received the previous year; and

WHEREAS,  the average program benefit for Mainers will be $483 during the 2011-12 heating season compared to $802 last winter and the average program benefit will pay for less than 150 gallons of heating fuel due to the escalating cost of fuel; and

WHEREAS,  the State of Maine and the Nation rely on, and will continue to rely on for many years, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel despite a recent focus on the development and use of alternative and renewable sources of energy; and

WHEREAS,  additional amounts of oil and natural gas, as well as alternative sources of energy, will be necessary in order to expand this country's economy; and

WHEREAS,  the United States currently depends on foreign imports for more than one-half of its petroleum usage and, as the largest consumer of petroleum in the world, this country's dependence has created difficult political relationships, with damaging consequences for our national security; and

WHEREAS,  neighboring Canada contains vast oil reserves, totaling an estimated 173 billion barrels of recoverable oil, that are 2nd in size only to reserves in Saudi Arabia, and Canada is the single largest supplier of oil to the United States at 2.62 million barrels per day and has the capacity to significantly increase this rate; and

WHEREAS,   there is a proposed system called the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, which would expand the existing pipeline system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from northeastern Alberta, Canada to multiple destinations in the United States, including refineries in Illinois, an oil distribution hub in Oklahoma and proposed connections to refineries in Texas; and

WHEREAS,  the Keystone XL pipeline expansion would, when completed, carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of North American oil per day to American refineries in the Gulf Coast region and the construction of the pipeline expansion would create an estimated 120,000 jobs nationwide, generate an estimated $20 billion in economic growth and generate millions of dollars in government receipts; and

WHEREAS,  the Keystone XL pipeline expansion has the support of several prominent national labor unions, with membership in the millions, because it would create jobs; and

WHEREAS,  a recent study by the United States Department of Energy found that increasing oil deliveries to American refineries has the potential to substantially reduce this country's dependence on foreign energy sources; and

WHEREAS,  the money saved by purchasing more North American oil would likely later be spent directly on American goods and services in contrast with money sent to hostile oil-producing governments that is later used to further antidemocratic agendas; now, therefore, be it