At Friday's House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, Nebraska activist Jane Kleeb raised the common concern that Keystone XL will ship Canadian tar sands oil to the Gulf Cost for export rather than reducing American reliance on foreign oil. Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.) asked TransCanada executive Alex Pourbaix if he would back up TransCanada's claim that the oil transported by the Keystone XL pipeline would really serve as a safe and stable source of energy for the United States. Pourbaix did everything he could to avoid the question.
TransCanada claims that Keystone XL will serve our national interest. Yet when asked to support guarantees that its oil would flow directly into the U.S. market, Pourbaix refuses. He even makes the contradictory claim that ensuring oil for the United States requires allowing refiners to export that Keystone XL oil whenever they see fit.
In other words, the business case for Keystone XL depends on shipping that oil overseas. TransCanada isn't concerned about American national interest. It's concerned about profit, just as corporations always and necessarily are.
Wait. Are you saying that the past and current Governors didn't ask this question? I would certainly guess that Dusty Johnson asked this question as a member of the PUC. Heck you would think that every legislator who has had the current and proposed pipeline go through would have asked this question.
Are you really suggesting that all of the bending over and taking away private land from South Dakotans was so that the oil could be shipped to our enemies and economic competitors?
Jana, Now you understand what RINOs do. Big Business trumps individual's property rights. They may even ban landowners' from shooting predators from snowmobiles. The double hit...property ritghts and the Second Amendment. Of course urbanites like Jonathon Ellis could care less.
Jana: yes. Daugaard and others shout about national interest, but they never connect the dots to show the pipeline actually serving the national interest. Steve, Jana and I understand that the position you describe is exactly what the party as a whole stands for. You face a hard battle in redefining your party away from those bad priorities.
I thought Sibby went Indy, no?
Cory: given your recent post on the evils of oil and economic development in North Dakota, surely you should think that sending the oil out of the country rather than using it here is a good thing.
Apparently the Democrats have adopted Corynomics, according to which importing a raw material, refining it domestically, and then selling it abroad, is a bad thing. Granted this turns almost all modern economics on its head, but hey, it's bold and new.
I can't help thinking that for you, oil is always bad. It doesn't really matter where it comes from, how it travels, or where it goes. Am I not sort of right?
Ken, exporting oil has nothing to do with the ills accompanying the North Dakota oil boom. Where either the Bakken or Athabasca tar sands oil is shipped for final use has nothing to do with the problems caused at the point of production.
Ken, the argument on national interest is not based on the economic gains of adding value to an export product. It is based on the national security argument of using that oil in America to replace foreign oil. Pourbaix fails to guarantee that the latter benefit will accrue.
I consider oil as bad as you appear to consider solar, wind, etc. Continued reliance on oil is really bad. As Governor Schwarzenegger notes, we are putting far too much support behind that diminishing resource and not enough on renewable resources. He says we should not "demonize" oil, but I feel comfortable saying that efforts to expand our use of fossil fuels while rejecting efforts to expand renewable fuels is irresponsible.
USGS recognizes hydrologist for aquifer protection:
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3050