The Keystone decision: America's love-hate with Canada's oil

[Kassz007]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/08/22/rfa-champ-keystone.html

...That pipeline, known as Keystone XL, a $13 billion project by Calgary-based TransCanada Pipeline, has been under review by the State Department since 2008 and the department has promised its recommendation will be released this month."

The issue in the U.S right now is jobs and proponents of the pipeline, who include such rare bedfellows as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many of the nation's major trade unions, say the construction of the line will employ some 13,000 new workers.

Another 7,000 will be needed to manufacture the pipeline material and proponents also estimate that 118,000 secondary jobs will be created as well. Congressional Republicans have clearly signaled that they will support the pipeline's construction, not the least because most of the anticipated jobs will be found in Republican states.

Those being arrested outside the White House argue that the transportation of Canada's thick, heavy oil sands crude, with its many impurities, poses a greater environmental threat than conventional oil.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was in Washington recently and made the Keystone pipeline a centrepiece of his meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Meeting later with the editorial board of the Washington Post, he told them that if the permit was rejected, Canada would sell its oil to China.

I really don't understand why this is such a tough decision for the USA. Either buy your oil from a friendly country, or buy it from the Middle East. Is a pipeline really that more environmentally dangerous than offshore drilling? Or bringing oil over on tankers? To me this is a no-brainer...

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from Kassz007:

I really don't understand why this is such a tough decision for the USA. Either buy your oil from a friendly country, or buy it from the Middle East. Is a pipeline really that more environmentally dangerous than offshore drilling? Or bringing oil over on tankers?



To me this is a no-brainer...

Unfortunately career politicians have no brains.

 

[Kassz007]

Quote from Lucrum:

Unfortunately career politicians have no brains.

Even a 10 yr old blind kid knows giving more money to the Middle East is a bad idea. Or perhaps the Dems WANT higher gas prices for the USA? More incentive to "go green" and be "environmentally aware," and all of that crap.