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Keystone XL pipeline deserves a second look
It’s been four long years in the making. There was media praise and scrutiny. There were meetings upon meetings to explain how the next four years could be better. And in the end, we supported what we thought was in our national interest.
If only the Keystone XL pipeline could have enjoyed the same fate as President Obama. There are plenty of parallels that could be drawn between this past presidential campaign and the long road the Keystone XL pipeline has been forced down. Fortunately for Mr. Obama, he knew he would have an answer on November 6. But TransCanada and the 20,000 Americans who could be benefitting from new jobs going into 2013 haven’t been so lucky.
Are the job numbers too few? If the Canadian Energy Research Institute has anything to say about it, the job numbers could be even more significant than what would be created during construction. Considering the pipeline will begin in the oil sands of Alberta, development of the oil sands that is linked to KXL could support 117,000 new U.S. jobs by 2035.
Are party politics at play? Over the years, KXL has proven to be a bipartisan issue, as was recently demonstrated in the results of the 2012 election. Two states along the northern route of KXL, Montana and North Dakota, historically known to be Republican strongholds, elected Democratic senators who have been staunch supporters of the project.
Do we not need another pipeline? The President himself stood in front of miles of unlaid pipe in Cushing, Okla., this past March and declared that “we’re actually producing so much oil and gas in places like North Dakota and Colorado that we don’t have enough pipeline capacity to transport all of it to where it needs to go.” A completed Keystone XL will indeed help transport more energy resources from our largest trading partner in Canada to American refineries.
But what many forget is that KXL is as much a connector to Canadian resources as it is to various American oil fields – transporting as much as 65,000 barrels of oil per day from the U.S. Bakken shale alone.
Is it the controversy over oil sands? Oil sands crudes have been found to be no more corrosive than any other crude oil that has been transported through American pipelines for decades. Even the U.S. State Department, which has jurisdiction over approval for international infrastructure projects like pipelines, found that KXL would “have a degree of safety over any other” pipeline, and would produce only “limited adverse environmental impacts.”
After numerous public hearings, seven congressional votes, and 57 safety measures agreed to by TransCanada, what is the Obama administration waiting for? Public polling throughout 2012 suggests that the majority of Americans are in favor of Keystone XL. Even in Nebraska, a state that has twice encouraged TransCanada to change the pipeline’s route through the state, supports the project by a margin of more than two-to-one.
The Keystone XL pipeline is more than just a political talking point; it fills a critical infrastructure void as our nation moves toward becoming the largest oil producer in the world, creates much needed jobs, and meets – and exceeds – both Canadian and American regulatory standards for pipeline safety.
Whether it’s a Secretary Clinton or another appointee who evaluates the final State Department environmental review of the project in the new year, the facts support the decision to find Keystone XL in our nation’s interest. We can’t afford “four more years.”
Schild is a senior manager of Downstream at the American Petroleum Institute and the executive director of Oil Sands Fact Check.
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