Keystone XL pipeline / Pipeline should be built

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Position: Pipeline should be built

This position addresses the topic Keystone XL pipeline.


For this position


Quotes-start.png Far from being “game over” for the planet, Keystone XL would not boost greenhouse gas emissions significantly, according to State Department experts. With or without Keystone XL, Canada’s oil sands will still be turned into crude oil and shipped, often by rail, to markets in the United States and elsewhere. The environmental movement’s energies — not to mention Steyer’s millions — would be far better spent elsewhere. Quotes-end.png
From Liberals are violating their principles on Keystone XL, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, November 19, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png On the merits, the Obama administration should long ago have said yes. The line would bring a reliable new supply to the United States, which still imports almost 30% of its oil. But the White House seems to have been paralyzed by its fear of angering ally Canada if it says no or infuriating Democratic environmentalists if it says yes. The result has been six years of dithering and the rise of arguments on both sides that are exaggerations at best or lies at worst. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone's just another pipeline, by USA Today editorial board (USA Today, November 18, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png Yes, much of the oil delivered from Canada to the U.S. would then be refined for export, not consumed here. This is viewed in some quarters as a flaw, as if exporting American-made oil products exploits Americans. We view it as ... manufacturing. You remember manufacturing, the process in which workers take raw supplies, turn them into a finished product and sell it? Quotes-end.png
From Energy security and American jobs, by Chicago Tribune editorial board (Chicago Tribune, March 29, 2013) (view)
Quotes-start.png This decision is far more important to Canada than to the United States. Remember Canada? They are our friends, our largest trading partner, they fight with us in every war, and their diplomats risked their necks to hide our diplomats during the Iranian hostage crisis. That should decide it. Killing the pipeline would wound Canada, and there’s no justification for that. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone claims are wildly wrong, on both sides, by The Star-Ledger editorial board (The Star-Ledger, January 8, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png President Obama will veto legislation enabling construction of a pipeline to bring oil from Canada through the American heartland to Texas, the White House announced. So much for building a working relationship with a Republican Congress. The Keystone XL would create jobs for Americans and enable the unlocking of plentiful, inexpensive energy. It has bipartisan support — except in the far reaches of environmental extremism. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone pipeline politics, by New York Daily News editorial board (New York Daily News, January 7, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png Think how manufacturers will help grow the U.S. economy if after more than six years of examination, review and debate, this pipeline is finally approved. Manufacturers can hire tens of thousands of workers to build a modern, state-of-the-art pipeline, delivering a project that will increase U.S. energy supplies. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone XL pipeline's gift: 42,000 jobs, by Doug Oberhelman (Chicago Tribune, January 6, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png While Keystone foes have warned of spills from the 1,200-mile pipeline, there are more than 150,000 miles of pipeline crisscrossing this nation. A new one should be safer than the old ones. And the alternative of transporting oil by rail is more risky and less efficient. Quotes-end.png
From Obama should sign Keystone Pipeline bill, by Sun-Suntinel editorial board (Sun-Sentinel, January 29, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png We share environmentalists' alarm about climate change and frustration with Congress' inaction. But if the president wants more progress, he'd be better off building support for more significant initiatives such as his plan to curb power-plant emissions. Meanwhile, his reversal on Keystone could set the tone for a more productive relationship with Capitol Hill. Quotes-end.png
From Obama should rescind Keystone veto threat, by Orlando Sentinel editorial board (Orlando Sentinel, January 28, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png While pipelines are not without risk, they are widely considered the least risky option among the methods current used — trains, trucks and tankers — to move large volumes of crude. Because building Keystone would funnel more crude from Western Canada and North Dakota into pipelines and help reduce the amount traveling in Minnesota and elsewhere by train and other modes, Keystone XL should be approved. Quotes-end.png
From For safety's sake, approve Keystone, by Star Tribune editorial board (Star Tribune, January 23, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png Canadians may be preternaturally measured and polite, but they simply can’t believe how they’ve been treated by President Obama — left hanging humiliatingly on an issue whose merits were settled years ago. Quotes-end.png
From Stop kicking Canada around, by Charles Krauthammer (The Washington Post, January 23, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png The big winners are the Chinese. They must be celebrating their good fortune and wondering how the crazy Americans could repudiate such a huge supply of nearby energy. There’s no guarantee that tar-sands oil will go to China; pipelines to the Pacific would have to be built. But it creates the possibility when the oil’s natural market is the United States. Quotes-end.png
From Rejecting the Keystone pipeline is an act of insanity, by Robert J. Samuelson (The Washington Post, January 19, 2012) (view)
Quotes-start.png We almost hope this was a political call because, on the substance, there should be no question. Without the pipeline, Canada would still export its bitumen — with long-term trends in the global market, it’s far too valuable to keep in the ground — but it would go to China. And, as a State Department report found, U.S. refineries would still import low-quality crude — just from the Middle East. Stopping the pipeline, then, wouldn’t do anything to reduce global warming, but it would almost certainly require more oil to be transported across oceans in tankers. Quotes-end.png
From Obama’s Keystone pipeline rejection is hard to accept, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, January 18, 2012) (view)
Quotes-start.png [Chris] Coons cannot believe that, absent Keystone, Canada will leave vast wealth — the world’s third-largest proven crude oil reserve, larger than Iran’s — untapped. The Canadian oil is going into the international market, and much of it into internal combustion engines around the world, even if this displeases Democratic senators who have demonstrated a willingness to look ludicrous rather than deviate from an especially silly component of today’s environmental catechism. Quotes-end.png
From The Keystone catechism, by George F. Will (The Washington Post, January 14, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png We don’t blame Republicans for wondering why the pipeline’s approval is still in limbo, particularly now that a Nebraska court has thrown out a challenge to its routing, which had been the most recent pretext for Obama administration stalling. But the issue isn’t worth wasting more legislative time or inflaming partisan tensions at the start of a new Congress. Quotes-end.png
From Return the Keystone XL issue to reality, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, January 11, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png The evidence regarding the pipeline itself, however, including safety and cost considerations, suggests it ultimately should be built -- and that Obama is stalling unnecessarily, as pipeline supporters complain. Quotes-end.png
From Obama's veto of bill to expedite the Keystone XL pipeline should not doom the project, by The Plain Dealer editorial board (The Plain Dealer, February 28, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png Obama and other Democrats have said the project won’t have nearly the jobs benefit that supporters say it will — although thousands of good-paying, blue-collar jobs would result during the pipeline’s construction — and that it has the potential to increase carbon dioxide emissions. Obama has dismissed the pipeline as involving “Canada’s oil” and has said its transmission would have no bearing on the price U.S. consumers pay at the pump, apparently forgetting that energy prices are set in a global market. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone veto message by Obama difficult to believe, by The Oklahoman editorial board (The Oklahoman, February 26, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png The pipeline is neither as magnificent as its promoters claim nor as apocalyptic as detractors say. It's just a pipeline, like thousands of miles of other pipelines that crisscross the USA. If built, it would provide a reliable source of oil from Canada, and a way to transport other crude from shale formations in North Dakota, at a time when there are still 250 million vehicles on U.S. roads and alternative energy shows little sign of supplanting oil. Quotes-end.png
From Override Keystone pipeline veto, by USA Today editorial board (USA Today, February 24, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png In vetoing the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act on Tuesday, Mr. Obama at once ignored the outcome of the November election and the will of the American people. Instead, he did the bidding of a plutocrat who made it his mission to kill the pipeline project. Quotes-end.png
From Obama nixes pipeline, by The Orange County Register editorial board (The Orange County Register, February 24, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png To placate environmentalist campaign donors, the Obama administration has concocted one excuse after another to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. If this process requires throwing logic out the window, then so be it. Quotes-end.png
From 'No brainer' Keystone decision make Obama administration looks like it has no brains, by Tulsa World editorial board (Tulsa World, February 10, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png The people who would build Keystone and benefit from its addition to world oil supply are average American workers and consumers. The most vociferous opponents of Keystone are wealthy liberals from San Francisco and New York who put the potential future risk from climate change above the current economic well-being of working people. One benefit of the Republican Senate is that it is finally making Mr. Obama show his real economic priorities, and they have little to do with the middle class. Quotes-end.png
From The Keystone Contribution, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board (The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png The two-year building time will generate 42,000 jobs, including 9,000 construction jobs. The rest of the nation enjoys a 5.8 percent unemployment rate, but it’s 7.5 percent in the construction trades. That determines a longer spell between projects for many workers. Public and private spending on construction remains 13 percent below pre-recession rates. Quotes-end.png
From Building the Keystone pipeline would put thousands to work now, by The Washington Times editorial board (The Washington Times, December 25, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png At this point, there is little doubt about the big picture. After two thorough environmental analyses, State Department experts determined that the pipeline’s impact probably would be minimal, even on climate change-inducing carbon dioxide emissions. The economic rewards of extracting Canadian oil are too attractive and the options for getting it out of the country are too numerous. We would rather see Canadian crude traveling a well-built, well-regulated pipeline in the United States than on the rail cars, barges and ocean tankers that will move it until cheaper options inevitably come online. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone XL’s continued delay is absurd, by The Washington Post editorial board (The Washington Post, April 23, 2014) (view)

Against this position


Quotes-start.png While procrastination has inflated the symbolic significance of the pipeline for both sides, the delay has helped to clarify the issue. The threat of climate change has increased, the claims about the pipeline creating lasting jobs have diminished. As for the energy argument, the United States is now exporting much petroleum, and gasoline is becoming cheaper at the pump. In short, the great political argument about the Keystone XL pipeline is coming to a head just when it’s harder to make a case for it. Quotes-end.png
From The argument peaks when the case for Keystone XL wanes, by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 21, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png If constructed, the pipeline would put communities and one of the world's largest aquifers — which provides drinking and irrigation water to millions of Americans — at grave risk of spills. TransCanada's Keystone 1 pipeline leaked 14 times in its first year of operation. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone has no redeeming value, by Erich Pica (USA Today, November 18, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png By most accounts, oil from tar sands is 15 to 20 percent dirtier than conventional petroleum, and the process of extracting and refining it is more difficult and resource-intensive. With so many cleaner alternatives, there is no reason to embrace the use of a dirtier fuel source.Approving the pipeline would send a clear signal to the markets to expand the development of tar sands oil. Such an expansion would hurt our nation’s work to reduce carbon emissions. We have to make energy cleaner tomorrow than it is today. That’s why the president should block Keystone. Quotes-end.png
From Keystone XL pipeline should be stopped, by Tim Kaine (The Washington Post, June 20, 2013) (view)
Quotes-start.png So what should be done about Keystone XL? If you believe that it would be environmentally damaging — which I do — then you should be against it, and you should ignore the claims about job creation. The numbers being thrown around are tiny compared with the country’s overall work force. And in any case, the jobs argument for the pipeline is basically a sick joke coming from people who have done all they can to destroy American jobs — and are now employing the very arguments they used to ridicule government job programs to justify a big giveaway to their friends in the fossil fuel industry. Quotes-end.png
From For the Love of Carbon, by Paul Krugman (The New York Times, January 11, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png Pipeline backers say the tar sands will be developed with or without Keystone. Not true. Over the past year, investors have scrubbed a million barrels a day in planned tar sands production, citing a lack of pipelines to move the product. Don't blame Americans for the shortage. The Canadians don't want a tar sands pipeline cutting across British Columbia and putting their ranches, farms, rivers and lands at risk. Why should we? Quotes-end.png
From Kill Keystone XL once and for all, by Rhea Suh (USA Today, February 24, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png Obama should place heavy emphasis on what EPA scientists are telling him; these are the nation's top experts on the environment. And even if the Canadian tar sands extraction would not be, by itself, a devastating new source of greenhouse gases, the Keystone XL would be a sorry symbol of the world's continued reliance on fossil fuels. Quotes-end.png
From The future of Keystone XL, by Los Angeles Times editorial board (Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2014) (view)
Quotes-start.png The link between violence and climate disruption "appears to extend across the world, throughout history, and at all scales of social organization." In pre-history, cultural extinction has been compellingly linked to climate disruptions: Mayan civilization in Mexico, the Angkor kingdom in southeast Asia, dynastic transitions in China, the Akkadian empire in Mesopotamia, and upheavals in Europe. No political leader from those cultures is here to vote against Keystone. Quotes-end.png
From Obama Right To Oppose Keystone Pipeline, by Robert M. Thorson (The Hartford Courant, February 18, 2015) (view)
Quotes-start.png One reason is that tar sands oil yields roughly 17 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional crude oil. A bigger reason is that there is so much of it — 170 billion barrels recoverable with today’s technology and maybe 10 times that amount in potential resources. Mainstream climate scientists are virtually unanimous in saying that as much as two-thirds of the world’s deposits of fossil fuels must remain in the ground if climate disaster is to be avoided. Alberta’s tar sands oil should be among the first such deposits we decide to leave alone. Quotes-end.png
From Mr. Obama's Easy Call on Keystone Bill, by The New York Times editorial board (The New York Times, February 13, 2015) (view)

Mixed on this position


Quotes-start.png So a veto now shouldn’t mean that Obama ought to reject Keystone categorically — just that approval ought to be predicated on bigger concessions by Congress on another part of the president’s environmental agenda. The goal should be to reduce emissions and boost energy efficiency, rather than block pipelines per se. Quotes-end.png
From Tie Keystone approval to bigger environmental goals, by The Boston Globe editorial board (The Boston Globe, November 18, 2014) (view)