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The oil industry has constantly touted the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada as a glorious project to increase petroleum supplies for U.S. consumers and provide thousands of jobs for the unemployed, but a new study reveals that the construction of the pipeline would actually cost U.S. consumers dearly at the gas pumps.

The White House has apparently read the report, according to Consumer Watchdog. Obama told the NY Times: “Oil is going to be piped down to the Gulf to be sold on the world oil markets, so it does not bring down gas prices here in the United States. In fact, it might actually cause some gas prices in the Midwest to go up where currently they can’t ship some of that oil to world markets.”

“Why approve the project, then?” Consumer Watchdog asked.

On January 4, 2012, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, wrote an article on the association’s website extolling the “virtues” of building the Keystone XL pipeline and expanding hydraulic fracking.

“Take the Keystone XL pipeline, for example,” Reheis Boyd gushed. “We continue to debate and delay a project that would bring more of Canada’s vast oil resource to U.S. consumers, improve our nation’s energy security, and put an estimated 20,000 Americans to work immediately. And while California and other western states won’t directly benefit from the Keystone pipeline, it’s a project with such obvious and urgently needed benefits that it should have been approved and embraced long ago.”

In contrast with Reheis-Boyd’s rosy assessment of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a new report by Consumer Watchdog reveals that pipeline will raise gasoline prices in the United States, hiking prices at the pump 20 to 40 cents per gallon in the Midwest, with no long-term economic benefit to the U.S. economy.

The report finds that:

Drivers, especially in the Midwest, would pay 20 cents to 40 cents more at the pump if the disputed pipeline were built, as the current discount of up to $30 a barrel for Canadian oil disappears.

The true goal of multinational oil companies and Canadian politicians backing the pipeline is to reach export outlets outside the U.S. for tar sands oil and refined fuels, which would drive up the oil’s price.

With U.S. oil production rising fast, any “energy security” benefit for the U.S. would vanish as American oil output exceeds that of Saudi Arabia in about 2020, according to the International Energy Agency.

The report, produced by Research Director Emeritus Judy Dugan and independent energy analyst Tim Hamilton, utilized industry data, public records and company documents. Access the report, charts and graphics at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/sites/default/files/resources/keystone
xl_cwd.pdf.

“Keystone XL is not an economic benefit to Americans who will see higher gas prices and bear all the risks of the pipeline,” said report author Judy Dugan. “The pipeline is being built through America, but not for Americans.”

“A vote for Keystone is a vote to raise gas prices on Americans and send the profits to a foreign oil company,” said clean-energy investor Thomas Steyer, one of America’s most successful businessmen.

Steyer, who won two campaigns for clean energy in California, has signed the “Giving Pledge” and is devoting the majority of his financial resources to clean energy research and causes. “The Consumer Watchdog reports makes clear that the Keystone XL Pipeline will lead to higher prices for American drivers at the pump and increased profits for foreign oil interests at a time when our U.S. economy is still in recovery.”

The report also found that Canadian crude oil currently being sent to the Midwest from Canada would be easily diverted to Keystone XL to satisfy overseas demand.

Much of the Canadian oil would go directly to Gulf Coast refineries owned by the same multinational companies investing in tar sands, said the report. These companies include Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Koch Industries, Marathon Oil and Shell Oil, said the report. Gulf refineries would refine the tar sands crude oil into diesel oil, which is in high overseas demand, and gasoline for export,.

Price hikes at the pump are likely to hit as far as California. Canada is the second-largest exporter of crude to the West Coast region, just behind Ecuador. California refiners are taking action to import and use more Canadian oil.

Political leaders in the Canadian province of British Columbia have officially opposed plans for a major new tar sands oil pipeline from Alberta through their province to the Pacific Coast. Two other similar proposals may meet the same fate, and are certainly years in the future. This Canadian opposition increases the motivation of tar sands investors and developers and to get Keystone XL built as sure access to overseas markets.

“Any reduction of deliveries to Midwest refineries would crimp gasoline supply, further driving up pump prices, and Keystone XL’s backers want to move cheap oil out of the Midwest,” said report author Judy Dugan. “Many major Midwest refineries have also made expensive changes to maximize their use of the tar sands oil and could not operate as efficiently using different grades of oil from other sources.”

While the pipeline developers and oil industry lobbyists like Reheis-Boyd have insisted that the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs, they have offered no proof of substantial jobs created beyond construction and maintenance of the pipeline itself.

The conclusion of the report is: “U.S. consumers should be wary of the Keystone XL pipeline–not just for substantial environmental and safety reasons, but because it threatens their wallets. Given the fleeting benefits of construction jobs, the unprovability of long-term benefits and the negative effect of higher gasoline costs on consumers, Keystone XL is no economic boon to the United States. U.S. consumers and the overall economy would bear the substantial risks of the pipeline without measurable permanent benefit.” http://redgreenandblue.org/2013/07/30/keystone-xl-pipeline-would-raise
-u-s-gas-prices-obama-notices/#AJaXhh2ETy7vX5gj.99

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Utter nonsense. About as absurd as Barry's claim that only 50 full time jobs would be created.

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Originally posted by m52nickerson:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
Utter nonsense. About as absurd as Barry's claim that only 50 full time jobs would be created.

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Do you have anything to back up what you are saying?

I do not fear God, I fear the ignorance of man.

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
*OF COURSE* it will raise gas prices in the U.S. Why do you think they want to run a pipeline to the Gulf Coast refineries? So they can sell it overseas.

And what will be the result of that? Well, when we have our own refineries running at or near capacity to meet our own needs, and then we pipe in new sludge for them to refine so it can be sold to overseas customers... what do you think is going to happen to the supply we get? Will it *increase*, or will it *decrease*?

The whole idea is to choke the supply here, so prices will rise, so that the oil companies can then use that price spike to raise prices for everyone else.

Naturally, Rappy cannot see the math in this, because he's quite obviously brain damaged and delusional.

He's never been able to provide any cites showing that the pipeline would create ANY permanent full-time jobs in this country. I mean, hell, he could at least try to argue that there would be more pipeline inspectors required to inspect the stupid thing, but then he's also in favor of eliminating regulations that would require any such inspections in the first place, so that claim falls apart, too.



"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero

"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012

Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"

Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."

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Originally posted by whozit:

Don't worry, it's looking like Barry isn't going to OK the thing any way.

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Yeah, Mike...I stopped listening to the Keystone stuff a while back, after I read a couple of papers which went through, item by item, and showed how the "facts" and "figures" had been twisted to make it seem like it would provide all kinds of jobs, drop gas prices, etc. It's a shame Americans are so blind on the matter, because it will probably go through and years down the line we'll look back and regret it.

All they have to do is keep repeating "jobs!" and "more gas!", and Americans lap it up like candy, and those who know better can't be heard over the ruckus because it's what people WANT to believe.

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Originally posted by whozit:
Just like all the bridges and roads Barry wants to fix, these pipeline jobs would be temporary but good paying. The unions want this pipeline but as a wrote Barry is NOT going to give the OK. Canada will point it west soon and do biz with China. This will piss off the unions but who the fuck cares anymore, where are they going to go, to the Republicans?

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