Discussion for article #230217
All TPM stories about this subject should include the obligatory clarifier: “The Keystone XL pipeline, whose biggest beneficiary would be The Koch Brothers…”
What’s amazing is that liberals get all the abuse for trying to stop this, but thousands of ranchers and landowners in these states oppose it as well.
Wouldn’t it be funny if it was a Nebraska – the heart of America! – governmental agency that killed it?
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Kochs own some leases in Tar Sands areas in Alberta, but I’m not sure they are actually involved in extraction there.
I am sure they are not part of the Keystone coalition, and would have no rights to move oil using the pipeline.
Building the Keystone would get thousands and thousands of oil tanker cars off our nation’s railways. Currently they are clogging up the tracks to the point where the Empire Builder Amtrak route has to bus passengers over a significant section of the route.
Railroad tankers are a lot higher risk of spillage (and explosion) than a new pipeline.
I hope Keystone gets built. It will also carry oil from North Dakota, and with current low energy prices, tar sands extraction is unprofitable (oil has to cost $80 bbl for tar sands oil to be profitable).
Here. The Kalamazoo River had a million gallons of tar sands oil spilled in it; it’s taken about a billion dollars to clean it up, and it’s still not done- nor will it ever be, really. That risk, combined with the fact that the oil sands produce about 4 times more greenhouse gases in their production than regular crude, which is already bad enough- we can not afford to allow the XL pipeline to be built.
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