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Keystone XL: More Leaks, Fewer Jobs, No Less Oil from Chavez

Last updated on 2011.10.31

The U.S. State Department conducted a public hearing in Pierre yesterday on the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. The hearing is part of a series of public meetings being run for the State Department by Cardno Entrix, a consulting firm contracted by Keystone builder TransCanada to "help" Secretary Clinton's people put together their Final Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed pipeline... a report which concludes, naturally, that Keystone XL will be environmentally hunky-dory.

The Pierre hearing ran out of speakers and ended a couple hours early. But that doesn't mean there isn't much left to say about why the Keystone XL pipeline is not in South Dakota's best interest:

  • Leaks: Governor Dennis Daugaard continues to assert his faith that Keystone XL will be safe, despite TransCanada's record of lowballing leak estimates on its first Keystone pipeline and evidence they've done the same on Keystone XL.
  • Via GPTSP, I learn that Michael Klink, a Bechtel expert hired to inspect construction along the Keystone I line in 2009, found faulty steel, bad construction practices, and pressure from TransCanada contractors to fudge the numbers to cover up problems. Klink has filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor.
  • The Cornell Global Labor Institute finds not only that TransCanada's job creation claims are "unsubstantiated," but that the pipeline might kill more jobs than it creates. Remember that, among other problems, the pipeline is going to raise our gas prices by ten to twenty cents a gallon. Suck that money out of the economy, and you get less spending on other goods and services, which gives you recessionary forces just like we had during the gas-price spikes of 2001 and 2008. And that kills jobs.
  • On top of all that, TransCanada's Canadian building permit may have expired.
  • And would someone please tell Larry Mann that the oil in Keystone XL won't supplant a single drop of whatever oil we're still buying from Hugo Chavez or other boogeymen? The tar sands oil is all going to China (and India, and other expanding overseas buyers).

5 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2011.09.30

    Guggenheimer has 86ed ip from Dakota Midday. Here were two questions he ignored when the State Department guy was on:

    "How many treaties with sovereign tribal nations have to be addressed and reconciled before permitting the pipeline?"

    "How many years will the pipeline be in the courts?"

  2. bret clanton 2011.09.30

    Cory, do you find it amusing that google is running keystone xl ads on your web page?

  3. caheidelberger Post author | 2011.09.30

    I find it appalling. But I will use any money I make from people clicking the crap out of those ads on more bicycle parts to further reduce my dependence on fossil fuels.

  4. rollin potter 2011.10.01

    All this garbage about running the oil through our state and the leaks!!!! Hey, how about just getting a gaurantee that all that oil will stay in the good old USA after it is refined!!!!!!!! You know it is going to be approved to send it to the Texas refinery"s come hell or high water!!!! R.L.Potter

Comments are closed.