The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will transport enough high-carbon crude to cancel out the climate benefits of President Barack Obama’s proposed fuel efficiency standards, the president admitted in a recent interview.
which are intended to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
Q: Is the Keystone XL pipeline more about jobs than oil?
A: Canada has what are called tar sands. It’s an expensive way of extracting oil, but they’re producing a lot of it now. And they want to build a pipeline to pump from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, where they can then export that oil all around the world. It’s not going to make a dent in gas prices here in the United States. Ultimately, the way we free ourselves from this annual spike in gas prices is to diversify our energy to solar, wind and biofuels. I want to produce more oil. We probably have a 100-year supply of natural gas. Most importantly, I want to continue to be more efficient in how we use energy. So, for example, me doubling fuel-efficiency standards on cars ultimately will save the average consumer $8,000 at the pump [over time] when it takes full effect a decade from now, because everybody’s going to be getting 55 mpg on their car. And that savings is equal to what would be pumped through the Keystone pipeline for 45 years.