Why are congressional advocates of the Canadian Keystone XL oil pipeline resorting to so many deceptive claims when there is no dispute the project would create American jobs and bring business to our Gulf Coast refineries?
The answer is that there is much more to the story than its face value and it is all about drawbacks. When you get past the Republican hype designed to politically embarrass President Obama for refusing to approve the project's route across the American heartland, you discover the pipeline is not the economic bonanza or environmentally benign entity depicted by its boosters. On the contrary, a strong case can be made that our nation would be better off with no Keystone XL pipeline whatsoever. One needs only examine the proponents' exaggerated claims (including downplaying of environmental risks) to see why.
TransCanada Corp., the corporate sponsor behind Keystone, actually admits that if its tar sands oil is piped down to our Gulf Coast refineries, it would be shipped overseas for a more attractive price than it could garner here. So much for the Keystone supporters' contention that the project would ease our dependency on oil imports from unstable parts of the world. (Read more...)
