Online Chat on the Keystone XL Pipeline

Online Chat on the Keystone XL Pipeline

12:02

Thank you for joining our "Lunch with Heritage" chat. We are joined by Jack Spencer and he will be taking your questions about the Keystone XL pipeline decision by President Obama.

12:03

Jack, can you give us some background on the Keystone XL Pipeline?

12:03

If you have a question for Jack, type it in the box below.

12:05

The Keystone XL pipeline project is a broadly supported project that would bring roughly 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada to the U.S. This would not only provide a significant supply of oil but would create 20,000 jobs right away and nearly 180,000 jobs by 2035. Despite an extensive environmental review process, the President has decided to reject the permit to construct this critical infrastructure.

12:06

Comment From Alex Is there any truth to what the President is saying about the route through Nebraska?

12:09

Depends on what you are referring to. It does go through Nebraska and under its current route, it would got over an aquipher. That said, so do 10s of thousands of other pipelines--safely. But beyond that, it must be recognized that the project has gone through extensive environmental review and the Adminstration's own department of State concluded that it would pose minimal environmental threat. Nontheless, all parties are perfectly willing to rerout the pipeline. Still, the President has rejected it.

12:09

Comment From Elliot When the Keystone project is approved, why aren't we building a refining plant somewhere along it's route?

12:11

The pipeline will be routed in a way that it takes advantage of current refining infrastructure. We have not build a refining plant in a long time and it may well be time to look at building new ones. But for the time being, generally speaking, our refining capacity meets our demand. Should Keystone, or any other source for that matter change that calculation, then we should absolutely provide the regulatory certainty that would allow for a new refinery.

12:11

Comment From Irret why should jobs outweigh the environmen t. jobs are temporary. we know that the pipelines leak and leave giant messes which kill wildlife and pollute our rivers and lands. why should we even encourage that for jobs any jobs?

12:13

Jobs should not outweigh the environment. Both environemental and economic impacts must be considered. That is precesely why we have the regulatory process that we do. The problem in this case is that the project went through the evironmental protection process and the experts determined that it could be safely built yet the President denied it anyway. This woudl have been a win-win for the economy and the environment.

12:14

Comment From Keith How can we convince those on the left about the minimal environmental impact of something like this?

12:16

I don't know that we can convince the left because I am not sure that they are totally driven by environmental concerns. It may be the case that some of them are using environmental concerns as a proxy to achieve some other agenda. That said, for those that genuinely care about the environment, I would say that we just need to continue to educate by bringing the work to light that has been done to demonstrate the environmental soundness of this project.

12:17

Comment From Alan Is Obama worried about oil spills, or is he worried about his environmental backers?

12:19

A number of folks are asking about the President's motives here. I really can't get into that because I don't know. I have to stick to what the facts are and the facts are clear on this one. The XL pipeline would provide a needed resources to the American people, provide a ton of jobs, and do so without any tax payer support. Given those facts, I honestly do not know why the President is so opposed to the project.

12:20

Comment From Adam What is the next step to getting the pipeline completed?

12:22

There are a couple of things that can be done. From our standpoint, we think Congress should authorize the pipeline application as submitted pursuant to its authority to regulate commerce with other nations. Period.

12:22

Comment From Mark If we are solely dependant on the middle east for oil, what alternatives will we have when they decide not to sell us oil?

12:25

I don't know that we are as dependent on middle eastern oil as is often believed. To the extent that we are, the U.S. needs to minimize the risk of such dependence. The way to do that is to maximize our supplier base both domestically and internationally. The more suppliers that exist, the less leverage any single supplier will have. This puts us in a very good position in two regards. First, in a diverse market, the impact of single supplier cutting off oil will be minimized in the short term and easily replaced in the longer term. Secondly, by minimizing the impact of cutting off supply, we undermine the utility to them taking that action to begin with.

12:25

Comment From John What is Canada going to do with all their oil now?

12:28

I don't think anyone has given up on the pipeline yet. But for the sake of argument, let's say that it doesn't get done. Canada has said that they would simply build a pipeline the provide supply to China. I would suggest, however, and this goes to Alex's question as well, that Canada will supply china anyway. The bottom line is that the Canadians have a very valuable resource and they are going to supply the world market in anyway that they can to maximize thier economic impact.

12:29

Comment From Matt Where do the estimates on how many jobs it would create come from?

12:29

The jobs estimates come from the Canadian Energy Research Institute

12:29

Comment From Mark In the overall scope of our energy needs, how important is the pipeline and Canada's oil sands to the country's energy future?

12:33

Its difficult to look at XL independent from other energy projects. Instead, I like to look at how policies that limit access impact our nation's energy future. In other words, we use approximately 19 million barrels of oil per day right now and XL would provide about 700,000. While that's nothing to sneeze at, it it not a make or break amount. Where you start getting into amounts that coudl really make a difference is when you start adding up all the supplies that the federal governmetn keeps off limits for one reason or the other. If you look at XL, off shore drilling, drilling in Alaska, and what's available on federal lands combined, then you start talking about really providing a substantial amount of American's domestic needs through domesitic sources. So it's not XL, necessarily but rather that XL is indicative of a larger anti access energy policy.

12:33

Comment From Guest Will it be too late to get the pipeline when a new president is elected?

12:34

I don't know that it would be too late. It just an unneeded delay. We need energy and jobs now so lets start the project now. The U.S. will still need energy and jobs in 2013, so we can likely do it then as well.

12:34

Comment From Rob Why no discussion about the safety precautions engineered into the pipeline? (everything has risk) it about minimizing it. Poor PR on this project.

12:37

Good point. The have been substantial safety precautions engineered into the pipeline. For example, it met 57 specific pipeline safety standard requirements created by the Dept of State and the Hazardous Materials Safety Adminstration. A good example of this is that it would be equipped with 16,000 sensors connected to satellites to monitor pressure.

12:37

Comment From Adam Is there anything that the states who would be effected by the pipeline can do?

12:39

Yes. In fact, they already are. Nebaska was really the primary state that had questions. to fix this, they made thier concerns known and TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, quickly responded that it would happily reroute the pipeline. Despite, this, the Adminstration is fighting to kill the project. It is these kinds of things that makes a lot of folks question the real motive behind the decision.

12:41

Comment From Rob RE American Oil Sands: Why are Oils sands in Ohio being purchased by China? and countries outside the U.S.?

12:41

We thankfully have a free market economy and under that system, absent a national security threat, foreign owners are allowed to purchase land and resources in the U.S. Its worth remembering that U.S. companies purchase reources internationally as well.

12:41

Comment From Sarah Would it help if Canada laid down an ultimatum saying, you have until a certain date to buy our oil, or we will sell it to someone else?

12:44

I don't know that such an ultimatum is required. The reality is that there is a lot of oil in Canada and they will sell it into the market as dictated by demand and price. It should not be thoughtof as a specific, non fungible thing where if they sell it to someone else it will not be available to us. There will be enough to go around for a while. We just need the infrastructure to get it here.

12:45

Comment From Alan Buckman The President claimed that this project could not be rushed he had to have time to evaluate information?? Did he do this with?

12:47

Great question. The president is just wrong on this. The application was originally submitted on Sept 19, 2008. Since that time, it has gone through a thorough process of legal, public, environmental, and national security review. In the end, the pipeline was found to be safe and in the U.S. interest. Still the president decided to deny the permit. Now he does say that it needs additional review to ensure that the reroute also meets the same stringent standards. I woudl suggest that the federal governmnet has done enough and if Nebraskans are satisfied with the reroute then so should the President.

12:48

Comment From Ron Is congress powerless to intervine?

12:48

No. Congress is completely empowered to intervene. They need simply to state that the permit shall be issued. This is completely within thier purview.

12:49

Comment From Jen Since oil is lighter than water, would it mix w/ underground aquifer?

12:51

The pipeline is engineer specifically to prevent aquifer pollution. Nonetheless, I understand that that is a fear. That is why the federal regulators paid specific attention to this concern. And at the end of thier review they determined that there was not a substantial threat to the aquifer. That said, the TransCanada reroute woudl have taken the pipeline out of the way of the aquifer. One more point on this, there are already thousands of miles of pipeline that go through the region.

12:52

Comment From Rob How long has the information & studies been completed available and in the Presidents hands?

12:53

The information has largely been generated by the adminstration itself so the President surely had access to all of it as it was developed. However, the Department of State released its final environmental impact statement in April 2011.

12:53

Comment From Josh How soon will this decision effect gas prices?

12:55

It is hard to say. What I think will have a near term impact is that this decison demonstrates a continued resistance by this Adminstration to open access to additional oil resources. That will have a market impact of higher prices. So it's not necessarily the denial of oil that is impacting the market right now but rather a perpetuation of bad policy.

12:55

Thank you for joining our "Lunch with Heritage" chat today. We hope you enjoyed it. We apologize if we could not get to your questions. Please join us for our next "Lunch with Heritage" chat.