Keystone XL pipeline deserved to die
The costly and environmentally destructive Keystone XL oil pipeline is dead, which should help give new life to this country’s crucial initiatives to battle harmful climate change.
President Barack Obama announced Friday he had rejected a Canadian company’s request to build the pipeline after years of intense national debate. He made that proper move after the State Department officially decided the project would not “serve the national interests.”
Excellent point. The pipeline came with an outlandish price tag of $8 billion, bloated promises of how many jobs it would create and dubious claims that it would not hurt the environment and could help reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil.
The pipeline was supposed to cross parts of the Great Plains states as it transported crude from the dirty tar sands of Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.
Supporters, especially Republican members of Congress from Kansas and Missouri, expressed their outrage after Obama’s decision. But by now, their cries are falling on more deaf ears in America.
Consumers have seen gasoline prices plummet because consumption in recent years has been stable while U.S. oil production has risen substantially with the help of hydraulic fracturing. Unfortunately, the use of highly pressurized water to force natural gas and crude oil out of deeply buried shale carries its own environmental risks.
Meanwhile, tougher mileage requirements pushed by Obama and adopted by the U.S. automobile industry are helping produce vehicles that use less gasoline.
Obama and others hope that killing Keystone will show the world at U.N. climate talks next month in Paris that the United States is more serious about taking needed steps to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. The pressure on behalf of the pipeline was pushing America to support making a fast buck by further polluting the planet. In the end, after months of waiting for more information, Obama decided to push back.
The death of Keystone XL does not signal a new broadside against the petroleum industry. That pipeline would have been only one link in a web of lines and other modes of transportation that already exists in America’s heartland.
But it was important to defeat the project. The false notion that Keystone was any kind of jobs savior played a role in its demise. So did the changing oil marketplace. Ultimately, the cons largely outweighed the pros of continuing this battle.
This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 8:56 PM with the headline "Keystone XL pipeline deserved to die."