With Republicans gaining control of both the Senate and the House, the debate surrounding the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Steele City, Nebraska, has been reignited. Originally proposed by the TransCanada Corporation in 2005, the current series of pipelines already standing brings crude oil extracted from tar sands in Canada over to refineries and reserves ranging from Illinois to Texas.
If built, Keystone XL would bring in an extra 830,000 barrels of oil a day into the current pipeline, according to the Department of Energy. Common arguments in favor of the pipeline extension claim that it will allow the U.S. to be less dependent on oil from the economic cartel known as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries; proponents also assert that it will create more jobs within the United States. While there is some truth to those claims, the cons of the project outweigh the pros.
The negative environmental impact of Keystone XL conflicts directly with efforts to stop global climate change. According to a 2011 study for the EU by Dr. Adam Brandt, the extraction of oil from tar sands is 22 percent more carbon intensive than more traditional forms of oil extraction. Furthermore, a 2011 study by Peter Erickson of the Stockholm Environment Institute predicts that the price drop that would come about from the increased supply of oil would lead to a 0.6 percent increase of daily oil consumption across the globe.
Another issue with the extension of the Keystone pipeline is the risk of leaks. Crude oil coming from the tar sand pits of Canada contains diluted bitumen, which is a highly corrosive material. The Natural Resources Defense Council notes that pipelines which have carried such crude oil has shown to be 3.6 times more prone to leaks than the average rate of pipeline leaks across the US. One of the most infamous leaks was the Kalamazoo River oil spill in July 2010, which leaked an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 gallons of crude oil into the river; it remains the largest land oil spill to date, and took over two years to clean up.
The geographic placement of Keystone XL also poses more problems. Part of the pipeline would go through the traditional lands of the Sioux people, including the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Rosebud Sioux President Cyrill Scott said that he and other Sioux leaders have not been properly consulted regarding the pipeline, and he considers the recent vote by the House of Representatives approving Keystone XL to be an act of war, since it violates the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851 and 1868.
Considering that native people and their lands have been exploited in the past, in cases such as the uranium mining within the Navajo reservation during the Cold War, it is safe to assume that the building of this pipeline would be a negative action towards the people living within the Rosebud reservation.
Finally, while the construction of Keystone XL would create jobs, almost all of them would be temporary. Politifact on Sunday found that TransCanada CEO Russ Girling’s claim that the pipeline would create 42,000 “ongoing, enduring” jobs is false. Citing the State Departments report on Keystone XL in January this past year, Politifact found that “construction would require around 10,400 seasonal workers for stretches that would last either four or eight months. This works out to 3,900 ‘average annual’ jobs over one year of construction, or 1,950 jobs each year if the project takes two years to finish.”
In other words, these jobs are very temporary, and would not make a huge dent in combating the lack of stable jobs that pay a living wage.
Overall, while Keystone XL sounds good on paper, further research into the consequences that can arise from its construction should be enough to convince the American public that this project is not good for the future of the country. Rather, we must encourage our elected officials to push for more funding and support for more environmentally sustainable projects such as solar panels and research into making cars that do not rely on carbon emissions to run.