Recently the President has gone on the offensive for climate change issues. One of these issues is the Keystone Pipeline. He has pretty much said it will not be built. Why? Because of environmental concerns. And he is entitled to his opinion, here's the opposition.
So we don't build the pipeline, what's the big deal? The oil this pipeline would transport is under Canadian soil after all, so what good does it do us? Isn't it better that that oil not be refined to restrict the carbon impact? All good questions, don't you think?
True it is Canadian oil, not US reserves. Do you think the Canadians won't find a way to get this oil to market? Or do you think they will say oh well. It will go to market, it will be refined, just not by the US. Since this reserve is middle to west in Canada, will they take it to the Atlantic or the Pacific? The reasonable answer is the Pacific. So who might be interested in buying and refining this oil? The Japanese? The Chinese? Wouldn't the safe money be on one of these two countries? When another country refines it, they can use it domestically, or sell it internationally. So saying that this move will stop the "carbon footprint" is inaccurate at best, in fact Japan or China is much further than Texas increasing transport costs and pollution. On the other hand, it will increase world supplies, and hopefully help bring down the price of oil, it will be used. Now consider, do we have any control over refineries in other countries? Can we force them to clean up their emissions? No. If the oil were refined here, our laws would refine it cleaner than we can assume other countries would refine it.
And what of jobs? Has not the President promised to be laser focused on jobs? Is not the Vice President touting the economic success of the Administration? Of course. But oil refined outside our borders does not employ Americans. There is no income tax if there are no jobs. And when we need oil, we will have to buy it from those refining it, sending dollars to other countries. Refining this oil would produce jobs in our country, and the President apparently doesn't care. Building the pipeline would be a great stimulus project, that the government would not have to fund. But I guess it is better to fund the Solyndras of the world, look at all the jobs... never mind.
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It is not about the environment at all, it is not about economics either, this is strictly a political decision, and political decisions usually cause failed economic policy. If it were about the environment, we would want to build that pipeline, so we can ensure it is as clean as possible, search China pollution to see what the carbon footprint would be if we don't refine it. If it were about economics, we would build this pipeline for the jobs and tax revenue it would generate. A political decision just buys votes of who, most would say are zealots, wanting to eliminate the use of fossil fuels.
Sometimes it is called the law of unintended consequences, like electric cars that charge up with electricity from coal. Or Detroit. We need to grow our economy to solve many of our economic problems. We need a Congress that doesn't spend every penny, because they can. We need jobs to get out of the malaise that is still affecting many sectors, regardless of the "rosy" numbers touted by the Vice President. Statistics are just ways to manipulate numbers. That is why unemployment numbers no longer include those that have given up.
It is not too late to turn our ship around, it will just take good people to do it. Good people which we seem to lack on all sides at the moment. We are the largest economy in the world, we can remain the largest economy, but not by refusing to do things that are in our economic interest.
Spend Wisely!
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