Keystone XL Pipeline

Floor Speech

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the President of the United States has said repeatedly that he makes jobs his top priority, he wakes up every morning thinking about what he can do to create jobs and how he can create jobs. Yet we have the greatest shovel-ready project in the country right in front of us, and when it comes to that particular project, for some reason the President is suddenly not interested. I think we have to ask the question of why that is. I think there are probably a number of reasons, most of which have to do with politics and not the economy and not jobs because clearly this is a subject on which there is no debate when it comes to the job-creation potential there, the impact it would have on the economies of multiple States in our country and what it would do for the issue of energy security.

The project to which I am referring is the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Keystone XL Pipeline is a project that has been under review now for the better part of 3 years. In fact, there have been two environmental studies. If you look at all of the due diligence that has been done, it has clearly been reviewed, it has been analyzed, it has been studied, and it has been scrutinized. It has gotten to the point now where it is time to move forward, time to make a decision on this.

Ironically and I think sort of surprisingly to a lot of people, recently the administration said they are not going to decide this now, for 18 months. They are going to put it off for 18 months--interestingly enough, from a timing standpoint, until after the next election. I think it is unfortunate that is the case because, again, if your No. 1 priority is job creation, you have one here ready to go today that could be under construction, and it would immediately create 20,000 jobs in this country, and it would create $7 billion of investment and a lot of revenue for State and local governments, many of which desperately need it.

In my own State of South Dakota, the Keystone XL Pipeline would traverse my State of South Dakota as the oil that comes from the oil sands area up in Canada makes its way down to the refineries and other parts of the country, comes through South Dakota, and just in our State alone that would be about $ 1/2 billion of economic activity, meaning hundreds of jobs and revenue for a lot of State and local governments.

This project in my State, like so many States where it comes through, where it impacts--there have been a number of opportunities for people to be heard, to get their input made on this. It has been going on now for 3 years. You finally get to a point where you have to say it is time to make a decision one way or the other. Clearly, my view on this is that this is a project that should move forward. But one way or the other, the President of the United States and his administration ought to be acting with some finality on this subject now, not waiting 18 months, not waiting until after the next election because it is politically expedient to do that, but making a decision now.

Why is that? Because, if it does not get done here, that oil from the oil sands area in Canada will go somewhere else and some other country around the world will benefit from that. It will not be the United States, it will not be refineries here in this country, it will not be the citizens of America--who have a good relationship with our neighbor to the north. Canada is our biggest single trading partner. We do about $640 billion of bilateral trade every single year with Canada. It makes a lot of sense, if you are thinking about energy security, if you are worried about the dangerous dependence that we have on other countries around the world for our energy needs, that if we are going to get energy we get it from a country with which we have a good relationship, a country that is friendly and a country with which we do a tremendous amount of trade.

If we cannot move forward, it is going somewhere, probably to Asia, probably to China. China will get the benefit. The citizens of China will get the benefit of this project rather than having the American people benefit from all this project would entail if we could get it approved here.

But we ought to at least make a decision. We have all these discussions in this country, all the rhetoric coming from the other side about how it is so important that we create jobs in this country. Yet the administration seems willing to disregard that and say we are going to make what is clearly a political decision and put this off for 18 months until after the next election.

I think it is interesting to note what some are saying about this, and frankly even what the President himself has said as recently as last April about the importance of getting energy from countries that are stable and friendly. This is something the President said:

Importing oil from countries that are stable and friendly is a good thing.

That is something the President of the United States said as recently as last April. There is a letter that went from 22 congressional Democrats to the President, telling him that America needs the Keystone XL Pipeline. Twenty-two Democratic Members of the House of Representatives weighed in on this issue. We have had Democratic Senators here as well who weighed in with the administration and weighed in publicly and said this is an important project that needs to be completed.

You even have the labor unions. Traditionally you would think of them as part of the President's political base. What are they saying about this? The AFL-CIO said:

For America's skilled craft construction professionals, any discussion of the Keystone XL Pipeline project begins and ends with one word: JOBS.

That is what the AFL-CIO is saying.

Laborers' International Union of North America says it is:

..... not just a pipeline, but it is a lifeline for thousands of desperate working men and women.

You have bipartisan support here in Congress. You have the working people, the organizations of this country that represent working people, weighing in saying this is a project that needs to be approved, that would create jobs, that would address some of the economic angst we are feeling in this country, and here we are faced with this unnecessary delay.

We have legislation that has 40 cosponsors in the Senate. It was introduced last week. Many of our colleagues have taken the lead: Senator Hoeven of North Dakota, Senator Johanns from Nebraska, Senator Murkowski, Senator Barrasso, who is here on the floor, and others who believe so strongly in the issue of economic growth, job creation, energy security, national security, that we have introduced a bill that would allow this project either, No. 1, to move forward or to have to provide a rationale why it would not move forward. It is pretty simple, straightforward legislation. It would allow 60 days from enactment of the legislation for a decision to be made about the permit, one way or the other. Either it gets permitted or, on the contrary, the President gives an explanation as to why it should not be permitted. But at least we get a decision made so there is some economic certainty for the people behind this project, the people who are making this investment, about whether it is going to go forward.

One thing we hear over and over from small businesses across this country--and large businesses, job creators--is we need economic certainty. We cannot continue to operate in this complete cloud of economic uncertainty if we are going to put investment out there and create the jobs that go with that investment.

Mr. President, 700,000 barrels a day is the equivalent of what we get daily from Venezuela. If we could get 700,000 barrels of oil today from Canada, a friendly neighbor to the north, or 700,000 barrels from Venezuela or any other countries from which we import oil, it seems so logical and such a no-brainer for us to be able to trade and interact and to have this economic relationship with Canada on this particular project. It does come across that way, as I said, in many parts of the Dakotas and Montana. It would encourage greater oil production here in this country as well, because you have the Bakkan Reserve in North Dakota and Montana which we would be able to access for this pipeline to be able to get some of their energy to refiners around this country. It is an ``all of the above'' domestic energy strategy: More domestic oil, more alternative fuels, more innovation. It is all these things we need when we talk about energy security. But clearly in this case, for some unexplained reason, the administration has concluded that this project should not go forward.

There was a concern raised earlier on about the State of Nebraska and the route the pipeline was taking. That issue has been addressed. The leaders in Nebraska--Senator Johanns and the Governor of Nebraska--have come together behind an alternative route which I believe was agreeable to the company, TransCanada, so you can no longer hide behind that and use that as a shield. The legislation we are introducing would make, of course, this subject to States rights and having States such as Nebraska intervene and work with the company to find this alternative route. It also would ensure and require strong environmental protections in the legislation. So that issue is something the legislation has addressed.

More than anything else, what it does is it at least forces some action. It at least says we are going to be serious about job creation in this country or we are not. We are going to support a shovel-ready project that could create 20,000 jobs and start immediately or we are not. All this rhetoric and all the hot air that comes from people here in Washington, DC, about wanting to create jobs, this is putting it to the test. This is where you have to put up or shut up when it comes to whether you are serious about creating jobs in this country.

I hope my colleagues here in the Senate on both sides of the aisle--because I believe this is a bipartisan issue--will work with us to advance this legislation. There is some thinking that perhaps the House of Representatives, the other body, may include it in some legislation they send us that could be coming this way in the not too distant future.

If that is the case, I hope we will pick that up and act on it because if we are serious and mean what we say about job creation in this country, there is no better way than to put some certainty behind this project. Again, it would be one thing if this had not been studied and overstudied and evaluated and analyzed and scrutinized--but it has, over and over again, now for the better part of 3 years. Mr. President, 700,000 barrels of oil today from Canada and the Bakkan region in North Dakota and U.S. refineries or 700,000 barrels of oil to some other place around the world that will benefit from it and, just as important if not more important, 700,000 barrels of oil the United States will have to import from some other country around the world that perhaps is not nearly as friendly as our neighbors to the north.

This is not complicated. This is a pretty straightforward issue and one where I don't think there is anything but support from the States that are impacted by this, anything but support from the leadership, political leadership at the State level and local levels. I am not suggesting there is--there is no project that has unanimous support. There are people who oppose this as there are people who oppose almost anything that happens in this country. But the huge majority of people I think in the States that are impacted see this for what it is--a positive, forward-looking project that would address so many of the important priorities for this country right now: economic growth, job creation, energy security, national security, addressing some of the needs the State and local governments have for additional revenue. All these issues are addressed with regard to this project.

It is mystifying as to why the President of the United States and his administration would put this decision off until 18 months from now after the next election, other than purely and simply political reasons and motivations. That is wrong for the American people. It is wrong for this project. It is wrong for jobs. It is wrong for the economy. I hope this body, the Senate, will take steps to rectify that by putting a date certain out there by which this project is at least acted on, at least decided, at least permitted or not permitted--hopefully permitted--so these jobs can be created and we can get this economic activity underway in these many States.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source