Pros And Cons Of The Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL Pipeline has been a controversial topic for the past seven years, first proposed in 2008 it still garners widespread debate. The KXL Pipeline is the fourth phase of a proposed crude oil pipeline that will run south from the Alberta oil sands to the refineries in the U.S. With the economic and environmental implications of such a large project so close to home its undertaking would also impact all the local communities as well as economies all over the world. For that reason how should the US government decide the pipeline’s future, taking into account the economics of the investment? To make an economic decision about this venture one must examine the effects of the pipeline from the oil and gas industry’s point of view, from

CEPA, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, claims that the oil and gas sector is important to Canada’s future prosperity and that pipelines are critical to the well-being of our economy (“Pipeline projects”). While economists’ environmentalists both claim that pipelines will negatively impact economies by causing a drop in GDP due to the adverse effect it would have on the environment (“Pipe Dreams?”). The KXL pipeline has the potential to create thousands of jobs and stimulate the economy but its construction could also lead to wide-spread environmental damage that would, in the long run, do nothing but impair the

With its significant length and girth the pipeline’s conception would call for a considerable amount of resources; these resources and the people needed for its construction would mean a significant increase in local employment. More employment would mean further spending which would encourage business, thereby stimulating the economy and starting the movement that would ensure job creation. To the oil industry the KXL pipeline marks an expansion that will develop their profits and enable them to access new energy markets. They stand to gain billions of dollars in revenue with the construction of the pipeline and its successful development would allow them to build more lucrative pipelines in the future. According to a study done by the Canadian Energy Research Institute “new oil sands investments are expected to…generate $521 billion in U.S. government revenues by 2035” (Durbin). While Albert Huber and Peter Bowe, president of Patterson Pump Company and president of Ellicott Dredges respectively, state that the real potential of the pipeline lies in the thousands of jobs created throughout the supply chain. However, it should be known that though the pipeline would add thousands of short-term jobs its completion would mark the destruction of the newly created jobs as there would be no more need to