Last Friday the Trump administration officially approved the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that was blocked earlier last year by the Obama administration. The pipeline will b 1,180 miles long, carrying oil from Canada down to oil refineries in Texas. In 2015, then Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the pipeline wouldn't help the US economy, nor would it help the US become more energy independent. He said that the pipeline was a "particularly dirty source of fuel." Conversely, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that he was "very pleased" with the agreement, and claims that Canada will be a "stable and reliable" source of energy for the US. Previously, when Obama was in office, he struggled with the Keystone XL controversy, initially stating that his administration was in favor of the project. Later, however, increasingly alarming environmental damage prompted him to scrap the pipeline. The $8 billion project is supposed to create an estimated 13,000 jobs, but opponents of the pipeline claim that a majority of these jobs are only temporary. Aside from the environmental implications, opponents worry that the pipeline could contaminate local water and land. There is also the issue of the pipeline going through Native American and Indigenous Canadian lands.
Discussion:
Do you think the construction of this pipeline will have an overall positive or negative effect on the US economy?
Should economic benefits be valued above environmental protection?
Should the US continue to rely on outside oil or move towards energy independence? (And what are the economic implications of independence?)
A lot of the problems that the pipeline "solves" (like job creation) either will be lost and possibly make the problem worse in the long run or create more problems than it solves, therefore I feel it will be negative
ReplyDeleteI feel like it will have a negative effect on the economy because they have to construct the whole thing and they are also entering Native American lands and the environmental cost of the whole thing is going to make the US look bad anyways
ReplyDeleteI believe the pipeline would have an overall negative effect because pipeline could contaminant the land and drinking water of the Native Americans.I think the US can move to energy independence because most of the times there is a lot of sunlight to use as energy.
ReplyDeleteThe economic benefits of the oil and creation of jobs is only temporary. There are many negative environmental and ethical implications of this pipeline due to the pollution and the prior agreements with the people living on the Native American lands. The environmental effects continue in the long run, and the contamination of water, a basic necessity, significantly outweighs the temporary benefits. I believe environmental protections should be valued, but the current administration under Trump doesn't take the environment into consideration. They even cut the budget for environmental protection. Shifting a focus towards green energy would be more beneficial to the U.S. since this would also create jobs without the negative impacts on the environment. Oil is an exhaustible resource, and the US should not have a primary reliance on it.
ReplyDeleteI believe that it will have a negative effect on the economy because it is just spending money on something that will not effect the economy at all. It should never out weigh environmental value. I do not believe that we should do that because there is no point to it. Just stay in the country.
ReplyDeleteI believe that overall there will be a negative effect on the economy. Not only is it expensive but the jobs that it is set to create will go away once the pipeline is finished. Also, the pipeline itself can contaminate where it is placed, especially on the Native American reservation it can affect them negatively because it may hurt their natural resources, I think that the US should try to shift to greener or more environmental energy independence
ReplyDeleteI believe there will be a negative effect on the economy because it does not benefit us.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think that there will be sever negative consequences building this pipeline with the problems of having oil leaks, possible breaks/blocks and if we decide to destroy it later on we have a 1k mile long pipe full of oil to try to get rid of.
ReplyDeleteI believe the pipeline will both benefit and hurt our nation for various reasons. Ways it will benefit is that it will be available to those in need of it. It will hurt our nation by continuing to harm the ozone layer with harmful sources of fuels.
ReplyDeleteAmerica should definitely move towards energy independence and should work to be as self reliant as possible, america should also try to use clean renewable energy. I believe that while the pipe may not have any direct negative effects it will still serve to slow down america's energy transition.
ReplyDeleteI believe that America should move towards energy independence all though doing this could hurt the environment in huge ways. If the pipeline was safer and they could garrentee that nothing would happen then it would be a great idea. But doing this could hurt the things around it.
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