As I'm listening to the evening news, a story came on about the Keystone XL Pipeline project, and the fact that the President had denied the application for permit. Angry Republicans retorted that the President was choosing the environment over the economy.
In what alternate universe would that be an epithet? The President chose long term over short term, the health of our aquifers and rivers and lands over a few jobs. I've got to side with our President on this one: Killing a project of dubious benefit due to real environmental concerns is a good choice.
Making the claim even more preposterous is the relatively few number of jobs the pipeline would create: 6-10,000. Let's put that into perspective: It takes the creation of 200,000 new jobs each month to keep up with our growth (that's 2,400,000 new jobs per year) - and that's just to stay even! We need more if we are to bring down our current unemployment. So, the killing of one 6,000 job project does not deter the economy (it's a literal drop in the bucket!) Sure, if our government was killing the equivalent every week, that would have a real impact, but once? That reduces the President's decision to choosing the Environment (something we all own and share) over the benefit of a few at a particular corporation.
My Nebraska friends have fought long and hard to prevent the construction of this pipeline across the fragile sandhills region and above/through the valuable Ogallala Aquifer (an enormous sandstone underground water storage formation that provides the drinking and irrigation water for a substantial number of people, ranches, and farms from S. Dakota to Nebraska to Kansas).
Perhaps someone can explain to me why building the pipeline is a good idea, because it sure doesn't appear so from the surface. It's objective is to move oil from the tar sands of Canada to Oil Refineries on the Gulf Coast.
It is projected that the cost of the pipeline is over $6 billion dollars. According to what I can find, it would only cost $2-$4 billion dollars to build a refinery - Why not build a refinery next to the tar sands, and transport the finished product (gasoline, kerosene, diesel) - which is worth approximately 50% more per gallon?
Since it is reported that our current refineries are running at near capacity, a new refinery would be a benefit to both the Canadian and US populations. Besides -since the refined products would be solely for domestic use (we wouldn't be shipping the oil from Canada for processing in the Gulf Coast to be loaded onto tankers to export, would we? Not since dependence on foreign oil is a major concern of our population and elected officials (not to mention the military which sees a potential threat to their abilities if an oil producer decides to shut off our supply at a critical time)).
Let's face it: Technology breaks. No matter how well the pipeline is designed and built, it will break and spill thousands (if not millions) of gallons of oil during its lifetime. Transporting oil and gas via rail and tanker through well known and hardened corridors is already a risk, but one we at least have a handle on. Adding new risk to the system doesn't seem beneficial - especially in this case.
Kudos to the President for once standing firm and choosing the public over the few!
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