What the Left’s Scare Tactics on Keystone Pipeline Get Wrong
Earlier this year the Obama administration again delayed a decision about the Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,200 mile, $5.2 billion pipeline could increase North American energy security and create more than 15,000 jobs. But behind the White House’s unwillingness to move forward are environmental groups that vehemently oppose the project. Groups like the Sierra Club warn that Keystone “poses a health risk to our communities” and is a “climate disaster in the making.”
We’ve lived through these scare tactics before. Exhibit A is the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Since its completion in 1977, this technological marvel has conveyed more than 17 billion barrels of oil, worth more than $1.5 trillion in today’s dollars, from Alaska’s North Slope to the Port of Valdez for shipment to the lower 48 states. Yet the pipeline was almost not built, thanks to a propaganda campaign by environmental groups beginning in 1969. Most of their dire warnings have proved inaccurate.
What the Left’s Scare Tactics on Keystone Pipeline Get Wrong.