Keystone XL: I Ask, You Answer

[autumnAtheist]

I'm burdened with the task of reconciling all these things I'm hearing about Keystone; I need help!

Here's what I've heard, lets make conclusions!

1. Keystone XL will ship nearly everything from the gulf into foreign markets

2. Trans Canada lamented in XL proposals that it is losing money in the Midwest where the pipeline currently ends; the want prices in this region to go up, with unknown effects on the economy in that region.

3. The United States uses 20% of the world's oil and has only 2% of its reserves. The oil in Keystone apparently won't reduce or even dent our foreign dependence, especially since Trans Canada has said that its all going overseas. Hmm, North American oil being directed towards foreign market$...?

4. If we're LUCKY, about 50 permanent jobs MIGHT be created by this.

5. People up and down the proposed route are having their property seized by eminent domain!

6. So the property thing is horrible, and its seems to ONLY be happening because Big Oil lobbied congress to force this nonsense down our throats in the fraudulent name of "reducing dependency", at the expense of property and related environment concerns, considering every pipeline Trans Canada builds leaks like it's old plumbing.

7. The Feds are going to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to accommodate this shit log, which once again proves the government serves a special interest constituency.

8. And I'm hearing convincing arguments that this is a job killer.


I don't know what Obama's sneaky reasons are for opposing this, but please help me reconcile these facts with what's really going on, and where does Ron Paul stand on this stuff?

[lowturnout]

wtf is keystone

[Black Flag]

First, it has nothing to do with US oil "dependency" or not.

All oil is bought and sold on the international market place and is 100% fungible. There are no little stickers on oil that says "made in Canada" or anywhere else.

So US uses oil - from somewhere.

The Canadian reserves are only key if and only if there is an embargo of shipping oil to the US. Otherwise the source is moot and merely an interesting statistic.

The pipeline increases US wealth, by providing a means for Canadians to increase theirs.

Item (5) is a crime.

Environmental concerns? There are worse and more applicable other areas that should be worried about then this one.....

[Keith and stuff]

I'm burdened with the task of reconciling all these things I'm hearing about Keystone; I need help!

I don't know what Obama's sneaky reasons are for opposing this, but please help me reconcile these facts with what's really going on, and where does Ron Paul stand on this stuff?

Most of your 8 points are wrong and some of them are the opposite of what would happen.

The Keystone pipeline is a win for the US economy. It will create a bunch of jobs and help ensure that additional energy is being brought into the US, instead of China, perhaps. There is a chance it could slightly lower gas prices, also.

It is anti-liberty though because it uses eminent domain to steal people's land at below market rates. It is also anti-liberty because it greatly reduces what people are able to do with the land that is near the pipeline but isn't take from people. I don't know of any principled liberty lovers that support it. I could see how pragmatic liberty lovers that don't own any of the land next to the pipeline like it.

[autumnAtheist]

Keith, Please help me reconcile the facts then.

If the pipeline will create jobs, then why do people say it won't?

Why did Trans Canada say they would ship it all to foreign markets if its just for us?

And I just looked it up, apparently the senate rejected a measure that would restrict the pipeline market to just us and not international markets.

Will the US still rely on 20% of the world's oil supply? And why do they have to move it all the way to the gulf to refine it? seems like they want to funnel North American oil elsewhere at the expense of our lands.

I'm actually not sure myself of whats true and not true, but from what I've read the taking land from ranchers, etc is horrible.

[Keith and stuff]

Keith, Please help me reconcile the facts then.

If the pipeline will create jobs, then why do people say it won't?

Because they are either ignorant of the facts or lying.


Why did Trans Canada say they would ship it all to foreign markets if its just for us?

The oil is more likely to go to foreign markets, especially China, if the pipeline isn't built.


Will the US still rely on 20% of the world's oil supply? And why do they have to move it all the way to the gulf to refine it? seems like they want to funnel North American oil elsewhere at the expense of our lands.

They don't have to move it to the gulf to refine it. The gulf is a major refinement center. Without Keystone it could be shipped to China and be refined in China. Refining it in the gulf would bring more money and jobs to the US.


I'm actually not sure myself of whats true and not true, but from what I've read the taking land from ranchers, etc is horrible.

It is. This project is anti-liberty. Principled liberty people oppose it. Thankfully, Obama has opposed it so far. He can always change his mind and said he is open about it if more studying is done on the project.

[Black Flag]

Keith, Please help me reconcile the facts then.

If the pipeline will create jobs, then why do people say it won't?

Because they have a political motive to distort the truth.



Why did Trans Canada say they would ship it all to foreign markets if its just for us?

There is "X" to build a pipeline - it either goes south to the US or west to China.
As far as Canada - it don't make a difference... that oil will move.



Will the US still rely on 20% of the world's oil supply? And why do they have to move it all the way to the gulf to refine it? seems like they want to funnel North American oil elsewhere at the expense of our lands.

Because for political reasons, governments have allowed the utterly mentally ill called radical environmentalists to prevent the building and/or upgrading of any new refineries, in the US or Canada.

Currently there is excess capacity in the refineries on the coast due to the utterly mentally ill decision to interfere with offshore drilling - which is not likely to change for perhaps a decade.

Economic thinking:
oil here, but no refinery -------------> oil refinery here, but no oil




what I've read the taking land from ranchers, etc is horrible.

If true, I agree.

[GraniteHills]

Keith raises the important points for liberty folks. The parallels between Keystone and Northern Pass are plain as day, and RP was the only candidate to come out explicitly against Northern Pass (that won him lots of votes here).

[DerailingDaTrain]

Most of your 8 points are wrong and some of them are the opposite of what would happen.

The Keystone pipeline is a win for the US economy. It will create a bunch of jobs and help ensure that additional energy is being brought into the US, instead of China, perhaps. There is a chance it could slightly lower gas prices, also.

It is anti-liberty though because it uses eminent domain to steal people's land at below market rates. It is also anti-liberty because it greatly reduces what people are able to do with the land that is near the pipeline but isn't take from people. I don't know of any principled liberty lovers that support it. I could see how pragmatic liberty lovers that don't own any of the land next to the pipeline like it.

The amount of jobs that the pipeline will create are miniscule or at least nowhere near the number most people think: http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/13/news/economy/keystone_pipeline_jobs/index.htm


The only independent study conducted on the tar sands pipeline job creation prospects was carried out by Cornell Univeristy--and they found only 500-1400 jobs would be generated by the project, and that most would be temporary. And yet, a slew of top politicians continues on trotting out the debunked, grossly over-exaggerated jobs numbers. Even TransCanada says it will, at best, create 5-6,000 jobs.

[puppetmaster]

This is a project that accommodates the trans texas corridor.