The Keystone pipeline is mostly out of the news now, but it’s still an important issue. Romney brings it up occasionally; Obama tries to hide it under the rug. Obama is wrong on this issue. The real debate is about use of fossil fuels, not possible pollution from the pipeline. The pipeline itself will have little environmental impact. There are many pipelines crisscrossing America. Most don’t leak, and if they do, it’s not the end of the world.
The complaints about possible pollution of Nebraska’s aquifer is a red herring. Environmentalists just want to break America’s dependence on oil. Because they pipeline makes oil cheap and easy to use, they want to stop it, not because the pipeline itself will pollute. Environmentalists argue it would be easier and safer to build a pipeline to the Pacific and ship the oil to China. If the Chinese burn the oil, the world gets the same pollution, but America gets none of the benefits.
It’s fine to have a debate about the use of fossil fuels, but it should be a straightforward debate, not one obscured by fake, legalistic arguments about an environmental impact statement for an oil pipeline.
