Dan Yergin, chairman and founder of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, talks about crude oil and natural-gas markets and TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would connect Canada’s oil sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast. He speaks with Adam Johnson on Bloomberg Television’s “Street Smart.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee launched a brief national campaign Tuesday via web ads and robocalls attacking Democrats who opposed the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Many opponents to the Keystone extension cite safety, pipeline routes, environmental concerns, and general opposition to the burning of oil in the U.S. for energy use. Many have declared the construction of this pipeline as some kind of tipping point, beyond which our environment will be lost forever. Some concerns are warranted, some are pure hyperbole; however, the vast majority of the concerns don’t address the real problem that we burn 20 million barrels of oil per day in the U.S. That inconvenient fact is not changing, at least in the foreseeable future. Whether we build this pipeline or not, that number is only going to go up, since the U.S. has no long range energy policy, which means we’ll have to import even more oil. In my view, I would rather import a million more barrels of oil a day from Canada, who is friendly, rather than from the Middle East, who is not. That’s the choice. The only choice.