The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad deal
The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will run through America, but does not benefit America. Based on the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement, the pipeline will create only 35permanent jobs. It would also put American communities at significant risk of oil spills like the recent tar sands spill in Arkansas. The pipeline will not reduce dependence on Mideast oil because Keystone XL products will likely be exported overseas, including to China and Venezuela.
American families would shoulder the risk of the pipeline, but would get no reward from it. Clearly, Keystone XL is not in our national interest.
One year after his historic comments about marriage equality, Vice President Joe Biden told a supporter that he opposed Keystone XL. Biden joins the EPA and other powerful voices in expressing serious concerns about Keystone XL’s risks.
As All Risk, No Reward Coalition Chair Randy Thompson said: “The risks to our country’s freshwater, and the risks to our land, are ammunition enough for the President to reject the pipeline.
But the fact that the tar sands oil will be exported to countries like China and Venezuela, and won’t even stay in the U.S. puts me over the edge — because it means that American citizens like me would be taking on all of the risk so that Big Oil and foreign countries could get the reward.”
Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources said: “In view of these facts, it is clear that Secretary Kerry and President Obama must determine that constructing the Keystone XL pipeline would be against American interests. Without any tangible benefit of energy independence or sustainable jobs, why would the United States shoulder the enormous risks to water, public health, and climate?”
Investor Tom Steyer said: “As an investor, it would be an easy decision to reject this project - and instead invest in opportunities that will create real rewards for Americans.
It would be business as usual to approve this pipeline, but President Obama and his administration have never been about business as usual.”
