On October 29, 2012, David A. McLellan, with Calgary's Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd., wrote "CNOOC's compelling deal--Don't abandon the free market for sinophobia," his Opinion for the Financial Post. He says Canada may lose "many quality jobs, royalties, taxes" if the CNOOC deal to buy Nexen is not approved by the Canadian government. The previous week, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean said most people think Alberta oil should come down the Keystone pipeline and be sold to the United States, not China. More on the minds of everyone today is the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Read on for the link between the oil sands and the hurricane.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper extended the decision deadline to November 9, 2012, three days after the U.S. Presidential election. Is Harper waiting to see if Romney becomes president and approves the Keystone XL pipeline on Day One when he is in office as he has promised in his campaign? Watch the video of Howard Dean in the October 21, 2012 interview with Tom Clark on The West Block saying the pipeline is going to be approved, regardless of the election results.

The China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) is trying to buy up the oil sands company Nexen. China consumes 10 million barrels of oil daily, with an expected demand increase by 50 percent by 2020, becoming the largest oil consumer in the world by 2035. China needs to control all the North American energy reserves it can get. Canada hold's the third-largest oil reserves in the world, with Nexen controlling more than 300,000 acres in the Athabasca region alone.

In the U.S., President Obama forced the Ralls Corp, privately owned by Dawei Duan and Jialiang Wu, to dismantle and sell its Oregon wind farm at the U.S. Navy base by the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) September 2012 ruling for fear of espionage. In 2005, CNOOC tried a nearly $20 billion purchase of California-based Unocal's energy reserves, seventy percent of which were not in the United States. Congress in Washington blocked the move as a national security issue. Since then, CNOOC had made sure it would hold less than 100 percent in U.S. or Canadian companies until the current Nexen deal came up for grabs.

CNOOC's offer for full ownership of the Canadian company's oil sand reserves is US$15.1 billion cash plus a C$3 billion Nexen debt assumption. 10 percent of the holdings are U.S. offshore reserves in the Gulf of Mexico licensed royalty-free by the US Department of the Interior to encourage development. Representative Edward Markey wrote the treasury secretary a letter to block transference of Nexen's five leases to CNOOC. The other assets go well beyond Canadian borders from oil sands projects to about 45 percent flowing production in the U.K.'s North Sea waters and to offshore Nigeria.

Similar to the U.S. CFIUS, the Nexen deal must pass the Investment Canada Act's internal review to see if it is a "net benefit" as it would be to the 99 percent of Nexen stockholders approving the terms of purchase and the business community of Canada. CNOOC's offer is to keep all Nexen's employees in Calgary headquarters for $8 billion American assets owned by CNOOC, and a listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. If the bid is successful, CNOOC will become China's number one state-controlled oil company of oil and gas assets in North America.

Like the American public, Canadians are concerned about their natural resources being taken over by China. In the Angus Reid Public Opinion October 2012 survey, 58 percent of Canadians polled believe the government should block the takeover with 12 percent in favor of approval.

Currently, China's state-owned companies can buy in the U.S. and Canada, but our private companies are not allowed to buy state-owned companies in China, where they are considered vital to China's future and off limits for purchase. Harper has said that the Canadian government will set new standards for foreign acquisition by state-owned enterprises when the Nexen decision is announced.

Bill McKibben, environmentalist, co-founder and director of 350.org, asked James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a top U.S. climate scientist, about the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline and the effect on the climate of greenhouse gas emissions from burning the Alberta tar sands oil. Hansen replied, "Essentially, it's game over for the planet."

No matter which country burns the oil, the total amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide greatly determines the climate for everyone. If or when we stop using fossil fuels, the world will be stuck with that climate for many thousand years, noted this day as New York City subways are flooded by Hurricane Sandy.