This red herring has been in the pipeline for a long time:
TransCanada has waited patiently for over 5 years for the President to decide if the northern route of the Keystone XL pipeline is in the “national interest.” According to Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, “It’s taken longer to approve the Keystone XL pipeline than it did to win World War II, longer than it took us to put a man in space, and almost as long as it took to build the Trans-Continental railroad 155 years ago.”[vi]
Last year, President Obama said he would approve the pipeline if it did not significantly add to greenhouse gas emissions. As the U.S. State Department knows, Canadian oil sands will be produced with or without the Keystone pipeline. If the United States does not import the oil sands, Canada will supply oil to Asia by overseas tanker, which will be more greenhouse gas intensive than supplying that oil to the United States by pipeline. Further, if the United States imports heavy oil from the Middle East to replace Canadian oil, the Middle East heavy oil shipped to the United States by tanker will be more greenhouse gas intensive as well. And, those imports will do nothing to reduce our dependence on overseas oil.
Regardless of where one stands on the issue of whether carbon dioxide emissions pose a significant threat to the environment, it is clear that this is not a substantial issue in the matter of the Keystone XL since not building it may result in even more worldwide carbon dioxide emissions. The argument is quite simply, a red herring.
Americans favor construction of the Keystone pipeline, so why can’t the President?
The full article.
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