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The Keystone XL Flim-Flam [2]
For Rep. Allen West, the skyrocketing price of gasoline is not just a policy matter, it’s a personal pocketbook issue. The Florida tea-party Republican (who, of course, blames President Obama for the increase) recently posted a message on Facebook wailing that it’s now costing him $70 to fill his Hummer H3.
It’s hard to feel the pain of a whining, $174,000-a-year congress-critter, but millions of regular Americans really are feeling pain at the pump — especially truck drivers, cabbies, farmer, commuters and others whose livelihoods are tethered to the whims of Big Oil. It’s an especially cynical political stunt, then, for congressional Republicans, GOP presidential wannabes and a chorus of right-wing mouthpieces to use gas price pain as a whip for lashing out at Obama’s January decision to reject the infamous Keystone XL pipeline.
This friendly Canadian corporation, they cried, would send 700,000 barrels of “tar sands crude” oil per day through the 2,000-mile-long pipeline that it would build from Alberta, Canada, to Texas refineries on the Gulf Coast. “Less dependence on OPEC,” they chant like a mantra, “more gasoline for America, lower prices for consumers.” What’s not to like?
Well, aside from inevitable environmental damage from pipeline leaks, and the fact that this foreign-owned corporation would use the autocratic power of eminent domain to take land from unwilling sellers along the 2,000 mile route, here’s something not to like: The gasoline and diesel that would be made from this Canadian crude would not go to American gas pumps, but to foreign markets.
The dirty little secret that those pushing so urgently for building Keystone XL don’t want you to know is that the tar sands oil producers are in cahoots with Texas refineries to move the product onto the lucrative global export market, selling it to buyers in Europe, Latin America and China — not to you and me. The pipeline and the toxic crude it’ll carry across six states would do absolutely nothing to shave even a penny off of the price we pay at the pump. .. Read More [2]
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Keystone XL Pipeline Could Mean Higher Gas Prices For Americans [5]
The latest reason you could be paying more at the pump? That Keystone XL pipeline.
The controversial pipeline, which aims to move more than 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta, Canada to the Texas Gulf, would boost gas prices as much as 20 cents per gallon [6] in the Midwest, Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, Bloomberg reports. Another goal of the pipeline? A price increase for heavy Canadian cruel oil.
“The Canadian plan was to use their market power to raise prices in the United States and get more money from consumers,” Philip Verleger, founder of energy consulting firm PK Verleger LLC, told Bloomberg.
TransCanada — the company building the pipeline — getting the go-ahead to construct it would only add to the many factors pushing Americans to pay more at the pump. Tensions in the Middle East may push gas prices up to $5 per gallon [7], according to The New York Times. In addition, gas prices typically go up in the spring [8]. Money managers trading in oil futures can also help fuel price spikes. … Read More [5]