Dear America,
We have discussed the Keystone XL pipeline in the past, so I won't burden you with a reiteration of that discourse now, but it is important to maintain a fresh memory of the facts germane to the pipeline's completion for purposes of considering what is relevant to us in today's letter. The Keystone XL pipeline is only a part of a larger project: the Keystone pipeline system. The XL portion runs only from Hardistry in Alberta, Canada to Steele City on the Nebraska-Oklahoma border. It is a duplication of an extant portion of the Keystone system that runs from Hardistry east through Canada, and then south at a 90° angle briefly through Canada to a point on the Canada-US border due north of Steele City from which it then runs straight south to Steele City. The effect of the XL portion of the pipeline will be to slightly more than double the capacity to transport Canadian tar sands oil to its destinations in the United States, primarily on our Gulf Coast, over a route that forms the hypotenuse of a right triangle formed with the already existing Keystone sections I described above. There are no opinion there...just facts. But there are opinions on the issues of whether the XL is necessary, useful or even harmful to American interests. I am of the latter persuasion for several reasons.
First, the material to be transported through the XL is even more hazardous if spilled--and all pipelines suffer spills, some regularly--than other forms of oil already running through American pipelines all over the country serving terminals and refineries from New Jersey to California. Second, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called President Obama out when he introduced his new bill to give congressional approval to the XL pipeline on Wednesday by calling it a "jobs bill"--that's the Republican way of vindicating anything they want that is otherwise dubious...they call it a "jobs bill"--for determining to veto it even before it was passed, as if the issue addressed in the bill were somehow new and more inviting than it was the last several times it was mentioned by conservative Republicans on the floor of each of the houses of Congress. But analyses of the proposed pipeline concur on the fact that there will not be 42,000 jobs created by building the pipeline, but no more than perhaps 6,000, very few of which will last for the full two year duration of the construction project, and that is the high end of the estimate range, which goes as low as 2,500. Then, after that two years of construction only about 35 workers will be needed to keep it operating. So, calling the XL a jobs bill is like pretending that no one objects to it. Third, and perhaps most important, the US exports something between 70 million and 120 million, depending on whose estimates you believe, of petroleum distillates: gasoline, diesel fuel and kerosene for jet fuel, and that is every day. Again, that is a fact, not an opinion, and like the rest of the facts I have cited, you can check them on the internet by going to reliable, non-partisan websites and reading for yourself. Most of it is transported from the gulf coast refineries, along with about 200-300 barrels of certain kinds of petroleum itself that are exempt from the statutory ban on exporting petroleum that has been in effect since the mid-seventies OPEC oil embargo. So, if the oil coming through the XL is to benefit the United States, it has to be refined into products that we will use here at a price that is higher than the price that oil companies and refiners can get in other countries...but we have the cheapest gasoline in the world right now, with the exception of the OPEC countries themselves. So what is the incentive for refiners and oil companies to keep that oil and its derivatives here in this country where it is less valuable than it is in other places, soon to include Cuba, I might add.
All of that was just priming the pump (no pun intended) for what I am really interested in today. On NPR on Wednesday, what Mitch McConnell said on the floor of The Senate was distilled (again, no pun intended) to a single line: President Obama has promised to veto this jobs bill before it even passes and gets sent to his desk. I'm paraphrasing, not quoting, but he did characterize the bill as a jobs bill. The "White House" response was that The President does not intend to bypass the regular process by signing a bill before he gets the final State Department report on the pipeline. State reviews such projects when they are the projects of foreign countries or corporations. And this is what drives me crazy. The White House response never mentioned the fact that the XL bill has nothing to do with jobs other than a few for limited periods after which unemployment won't be improved at all. And whoever at the White House made the response apparently never mentioned any of the other matters to be considered before the XL pipeline gets approved, such as the fact that the only people who want the pipeline are the petroleum industry here and Trans Canada, the Canadian equivalent of Exxon-Mobil. By the way, there is another pipeline, part of the Keystone system I believe, that is planned to go through Washington State, which the people there are protesting just as those in Nebraska are, all of which begs the question, why doesn't Trans Canada build that pipeline in Canada and just send all of the tar sands oil to refineries on the Pacific Coast...of Canada.
Set aside the facts, all of which have been stretched out of proportion apparently. The XL isn't a big jobs bill, and it probably isn't a catastrophic risk to our environment, although the jury...literally...is still out on that in Nebraska. But still, the Republicans are able to make hay out of it while "the White House" just paws the dirt and says, "aw shucks, can't we just get along." Someone should tell President Obama that some guy who looks like a turtle is eating his lunch, and ask him why he doesn't do something about it. And if you happen to see him, maybe you want to ask him what he hires these guys who speak as "the White House" for anyway.
Your friend,
Mike
Leave a comment