On June 7, Bellingham city council unanimously passed a motion denouncing the Alberta tar sands as “harmful to the United States and to all countries of the world.”

That resolution directed the city to “identify ways to shift operations and consumption away from fossil fueled transportation and specifically high-carbon based Canadian Tar Sands.”

Here in the Lower Mainland, two civic politicians have expressed admiration for the move, but stopped short of stating that they would vote for a similar motion.

“I am quite impressed that they want to get away from the use of fossil fuels for transportation,” Darrell Mussatto, mayor of the City of North Vancouver, told the Straight. "I think that that is showing leadership.”

But Mussatto questioned the logic of targeting the tar sands specifically. “Why the tar sands and why isn’t it the deep-sea oil drilling in the Gulf?” he asked. “Is one worse than another? I guess. The one in northern Alberta is doing tremendous damage to the Athabasca River and is requiring a tremendous amount of energy, in terms of natural gas, to extract that oil. So is it bad? Yes. However, I think we as a culture have to try to wean ourselves off fossil fuels in general.”

David Cadman, a COPE member of Vancouver city council, told the Straight that is it worth asking how much fuel used by the city contains oil produced at the tar sands.

“We have civic suppliers who are contracted by us to supply fuel for, specifically, our vehicle fleets,” he said. “And so the issue that I would need to look into is, what is the mix of that, and does it contain tar sands fuel.”

Cadman argued that too often when needs for energy are being discussed, the focus is on securing more.

“Therein lies the problem,” he said. “I think that all of us that are in the business of running large facilities like cities need to look at reducing our energy consumption.”

The Bellingham council resolution noted that the production of oil derived from the tar sands generates at least three times the amount of pollutants that contribute to climate change than other fossil fuels. After the motion passed, copies were sent to U.S. president Barack Obama, the U.S. secretary of energy, and other high-level American and Canadian officials.

You can follow Travis Lupick on Twitter at twitter.com/tlupick.