Keystone XL pipeline

[oldster]

Personally, I believe that it should be built and will be built.  I believe that the president is playing politics with it because he has received such large campaign contributions from environmental groups in the past.  But the unions and middle class have more voters and and he will have to recognize that, as well.  Then there is, of course, the issue of what is the right thing to do for the country.  Some states-rights people have an argument that the Federal government should not be able to override the rejection by Nebraska of the pipeline, but I believe that the national good is served and that therefore Federal interests come before states interests in this particular case.  And the extremist environmentalist faction needs to be heard but not to hold sway over national interest.  I believe that this project is in the national interest.

I believe that he will do the right thing in the end and drop his opposition to the project.   I hope so, any way.

Of course, the builder (Trans-Canada) has not proposed any alternatives that I can find, so maybe that is a possibility.  Either way, a decision is due by February 21.  Time to sh*t or get off the pot, IMHO.

[yoyo]

http://www.mitchellrepublic.com/event/article/id/61063/  There is a plan to reroute the pipeline through Nebraska.

[yoyo]

As far as "national interest" goes, getting the oil to gulf states refineries is a way to get the oil to the global market.  Which of course is a great business decision for all those involved, but it has little to do with keeping the oil here.

[oldster]

We are already a net exporter of fuel products, and exports are beneficial to our economy, so I believe that we can benefit from the value added to the raw material that we bring in from Canada.  It also gives us long term access to the resource for domestic use, even if there are short term exports.

I have to wonder if anybody has considered putting a refinery just over the border with Canada to refine the products as soon as the raw material is inside of our boundries.  We have heard often that refineries are aging and that we need to build some new ones. 

[yoyo]

.....I have to wonder if anybody has considered putting a refinery just over the border with Canada t....

I know nothing about building refineries, but so far the option of building the original Keystone pipeline, building the keystone extension, and building a pipeline to Canada's west coast to ship it to Asia have all been more attractive than building a refinery near the source.  If building the refinery was a better option, I am sure Canada would take us out of the picture completely and just build their own.

[Wiener]

As far as "national interest" goes, getting the oil to gulf states refineries is a way to get the oil to the global market.  Which of course is a great business decision for all those involved, but it has little to do with keeping the oil here.

Your right on the money on that one Yo.  Have you checked out how much coal has gotten to per ton, and where most of it goes that comes from our mines here in the states?    Yep same place a lot of our oil goes   China.

[oldster]

an interesting counterpoint

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/keystone_xl_is_a_tar_sands_pip.html

[oldster]

and some data on exports

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_expc_a_ep00_eex_mbbl_m.htm