The Benefits and Drawbacks of the Keystone XL Pipeline

Option 1: build pipeline - resuling in possibly exporting a percentage of the Tarsands oil through american run ports. Americans will maintain pipeline, and run compressor stations as well as handle the ships - and this for less than 100% of the oil - the remainder would be refined in America, by Americans, in refineries built and maintained by Americans.

Option 2: Don't build pipeline - resulting in 100% of the oil transported in Canadian built and maintained pipeline to canadian ports and exported with no American involvement at all. Once pipeline is built, can we put other canadian oils into it and export them as well on the world market?

The difference between Option 1 and option 2: In Option 2 there will be NO americans builting the pipeline, NO local American commerce during construction, No American jobs managing or maintaining the pipeline, NO American jobs building, running or maintaining the refineries that process the oil, and NO American port employment to handle the ships and load the crude - or refined product to export it. Note that if Crude is exported from the pipeline, it will be a canadian export, but if refined product is exported, it will be an American export.

So, the jobs argument, by itself, falls to the let's build the pipeline side of the argument.

What are the other issues: Land use and Pipeline safety.

Pipeline safety - I live on the Kalamazoo River (2010 Enbridge spill) and I KNOW that pipelines can be built and operated safely with a zero-leakage policy. Enbridge happened due to corporate and governmental neglect for years! Enbridge pipeline was built in the same era as the thousands and thousand of Underground storage tanks that have virtually all leaked - today, gas stations have tanks that don't leak without immediate detection - we can build a pipline with similar safety attributes.

Can the Land issues be solved adequately using the I-35/I-69 type Super corridor where a single swath of land transports highway vehicles, rail, Electric, Natural Gas, water, and oil? I don't know yet.

SHvnDave of MI 1:59PM December 17, 2011

If Canada's (secret?) goal is to export this crude oil then they do not need a long pipeline to the Gulf, simply a shorter one to Vancouver. I do wonder why Canada wants access to the Gulf ports but the author's premise is an unlikely answer. It is obvious that the author is opposed to the pipeline and plays down the number and duration of jobs to support his position. In this he is no more truthful than those who dislikes and we are no closer to the truth about the pipeline than we were before reading this.

Douglas4517 of FL 10:41AM December 17, 2011

There is very little threat to the High Plains Aquifer. Geologic strata and extra reinforcement of the pipeline in sensitive areas makes a the threat of leakage into the aquifer very remote.

In "worst case" simulations only about 15% of the aquifer is threatened and any contamination would be limited.

The larger issue is the evolution of "Big E" Environmentalism into the official religion of the United States.

This Neo-Pantheism controls the media, politicians, bureaucracies of government, courts and educational institutions.

The Environmentalist Creed is short and simple; "All forms of human endeavor are evil. The only form of acceptable interaction between man and Nature is; conservation, restoration, preservation and veneration."

Our carbon footprint has become our soul, which must be purified by carbon credits, turning our thermostats down in winter - up in summer - recycling, walking to work, and eating and living "Green".

The truly zealous penitent can become crusaders in the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Center for Bio-Diversity r Friends of the Earth or any of hundreds of enviro groups worldwide.

This One World Religion of Environmentalism and its dogmatic spin-off, Global Warming are cancers eating into economies, societies and civilization itself.

The Environmentalist regulatory web constrains freedoms, destroys jobs, limits energy production, chokes business endeavors and restricts recreational/outdoor access. And, at the same time, increases the price of everything we use in our daily lives, energy, housing, food, clothing and recreational activities.

Going Green Has Gone Too Far!

R.L. Schaefer of CA 11:12PM December 16, 2011