Dear Editor:
We have a president who refuses to allow the State Department to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. The original Keystone pipeline has been in service since 2010. It has the capability of transporting 590,000 barrels of oil a day from Hardesty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska. (It would take 50 trains, 100 cars each, running continuously, assuming a six-day "turn around time," to carry this amount of oil.) Has anyone heard of any incredible environmental disasters created by the existing Keystone pipeline?
The Transportation Department suddenly has their underwear in such a wad that they are issuing "emergency orders" which contain more regulation of any train that includes more than 35 cars containing oil.
The routing of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would allow it to "pick up" oil from the Williston Basin in Montana and North Dakota. The addition of the XL pipeline would increase the total capacity of the Keystone system to 1.1 million barrels a day.
According to an April 26 article in Forbes magazine. it would cost $50 billion more per year to use rail to transport the oil that would be carried by the XL pipeline. Those of us purchasing that oil at the gas pump will pay that difference.
Is this another example of government bureaucrats who are typically totally out of touch with reality? Perhaps we should remove the State Department from this issue by building the pipeline, except for a short segment at the Canadian border. Multiple 100-car trains could shuttle back and forth to move the oil over the border. That might make sense to those who actually believed in "shovel ready" projects.
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