A strong brief in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline was published today. Among other things, this pro-Keystone brief points out some seemingly obvious things, such as:
[R]ejecting the pipeline won’t reduce global carbon emissions or the risk of environmentally destructive spills. Canada’s government — and rising world petroleum prices — guarantee that the country will extract the oil from its tar sands, and that Asia will take it if America doesn’t. That means using pipelines to transport Canada’s heavy crude hundreds of miles to the West Coast and then shipping it abroad, burning fossil fuels and risking ocean spills along the way. . .
Critics fall back on the allegation that petroleum companies want to export much of the Canadian oil abroad after refining it in Gulf Coast facilities. With access to the world oil market, they can and should have that option. But if export markets are that attractive, Canadian crude will reach them without transiting the United States, and American refineries will get their low-grade crude from somewhere else. The bottom line remains: The more American refineries source their low-grade crude via pipeline from Canada and not from tankers out of the Middle East or Venezuela, the better, even if not every refined barrel stays in the country.
The brief adds that “The [anti-Keystone] activists have the wrong target.”
So who published this pro-Keystone brief? The American Petroleum Institute? My peeps at the American Enterprise Institute? Our friends at the Institute for Energy Research?
Nope: It came from the editorial page of the Washington Post.
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