The Keystone Pipeline to take crude oil from Canada to refineries on the U.S. gulf coast should be supported.

If we don’t build the pipeline:

• We’ll remain as dependent as ever on oil from unreliable sources.

• We’ll continue to have to pay to ensure dangerous trade routes stay open (e.g. Strait of Hormuz).

• We’ll continue to be limited in our ability to deal with the likes of Iran.

• The oil will be shipped overseas and burned anyway, so the carbon emissions will NOT be avoided (the Canadian prime minister has said they’ll build a pipeline to Vancouver BC and export the oil to China).

• The oil will still get refined, but U.S. companies will have been denied the opportunity to add value and do business.

If we do build the pipeline:

• The problems above will be avoided.

• We don’t necessarily have to use the output from the pipeline in the U.S. If we were (by some miracle) to develop an energy policy so effective that we didn’t need the refined products, they could be sold.

• Many jobs will be created. Far more than the lower-end estimates some have made. There is no way a 1,700 mile long pipeline can be built without a tremendous amount of human effort. True they would be “temporary,” but still spread over the years. Furthermore, the same could be said for cars and houses: construction of each is a one-time task, but add them all up and you end up with an economy.

Scott Flagg, Kirkland