Keystone XL Pipeline

Floor Speech

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would like to address the Senate on the subject of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which has been reported to be part of the proposed package that would contain the extension of the payroll tax holiday and the expiring unemployment insurance benefits.

There have been some who have raised questions about the pipeline and some who have said they object to it being included in the package, but I would like to hopefully shed a little light--maybe not so much heat--on the subject, coming from a State such as mine, which is an energy-producing state. We are very familiar with the oil and gas pipelines and the safety measures that need to be undertaken to keep them safe and to keep them from contaminating the environment. This is not some sort of alien technology or something the industry does not have the expertise to deal with in a safe and secure and appropriate manner.

The legislation that is being proposed in the payroll tax holiday would require the Secretary of State to issue a Presidential permit within 60 days of enactment--and this does not take the President out of the equation--unless the President publicly determines this project is not in the national interest. So if for some reason--really beyond my comprehension--President Obama were to determine that building this pipeline was not in the public's interest, he could, under the terms of this legislation, essentially veto it. But once the permit is approved, TransCanada would be able to start construction on parts of the project outside of Nebraska.

Now, why outside of Nebraska? As you may recall, Mr. President, a number of people in Nebraska, including their leadership here in the Senate, had concerns about the route of the TransCanada pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipeline within Nebraska itself, but Nebraska's leaders have taken it upon themselves to come up with a new route, which they will do in order to satisfy concerns about contamination of the aquifer in that State.

The one point I would like to emphasize is that we have been talking for a long time--since the financial crisis in September of 2008--about what we need to do to get our economy back on track and to create jobs. Indeed, there was a lot of discussion back during the passage of the stimulus that we needed shovel-ready jobs. But, as you will recall, there were a lot of things that went into the stimulus that did not include infrastructure development. In fact, infrastructure was comprised only of a very small fraction of what the spending on the stimulus actually did.

First of all, let me make clear what we are talking about. This chart demonstrates the existing Keystone Pipeline. In other words, there is already a Keystone Pipeline, but it goes from Alberta, Canada, and terminates in Illinois. That is the orange line. So what we are really talking about is an extension and expansion of the Keystone Pipeline, and it terminates in Port Arthur and Houston, TX, where we have the refinery capacity to make it into gasoline, jet fuel, and the like. So this is the proposed route, as you can see, of the expansion. It hooks up in Steele City, NE, with the existing pipeline going down to Cushing, OK, but then the expansion would be down into Houston and Port Arthur.

I think this is another educational document. These actually are the crude oil and refined product pipelines that currently exist in the United States. So lest anybody feel as if we are doing something new and novel that has never been done, let me try to disabuse them of that notion.

As you can see, this is a huge spider's web of oil and gas and refined product pipelines throughout the United States. Not surprisingly, you see a lot of them concentrated down in my State of Texas but, importantly, a good portion of that pipeline traffic emanates from our No. 1 trading partner in the world, Canada, which is a friend and an ally and a safe source of oil and gas into the United States. As to some people who perhaps wonder about this pipeline and wonder what it all means, this will help allay any concerns or some concerns they might have that we are somehow doing something novel or risky or that we have not done in the past.

Pipelines are simply one mode of transporting oil and gas. You can do it other ways. You can put it on a tanker truck and drive it down our highways. I happen to think this is a better and safer way to do it than loading up a bunch of tanker trucks to drive down our highways. You can do it through barges, through our inland waterways. But the pipeline is simply the most efficient and safest way of doing it.

Of course, as we all know, these pipelines are by and large buried and more or less unseen. So this is a transportation network for our Nation's oil and gas that most people probably are not even aware of, and I guess that is a good thing, but it is important that people understand what we are talking about.

These pipelines move crude oil from oilfields on land and offshore to refineries, where it is turned into fuels and other products.

You can see down here in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, where we have tremendous reserves of oil and gas. You can see how the pipelines extend even beneath the water out into the Gulf of Mexico.

These pipelines move crude oil to refineries, where it is turned into fuels and other products, and then from the refineries to terminals, where fuels are trucked to retail outlets. One amazing thing about this is this literally happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, out of sight and out of mind to most Americans.

Let's talk a minute about safety because this is something on which no one has an exclusive claim when it comes to our environmental and safety concerns. Under the law, any spill associated with one of these pipelines has to be reported--a spill of 5 gallons or more--to the Department of Transportation. There are already a number of Federal agencies that regulate this industry, including the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Once this oil gets to the refineries, the U.S. refining sector has invested a lot of money upgrades throughout the country to adapt to the world's changing oil supply, including the increasing percentage of the world's oil that is so-called heavy crude. My understanding is that what comes out of the oil sands in Canada is heavy crude which requires a little different refining capability. But refineries in the U.S. gulf region have long received heavy crude from other countries and are well-positioned to receive and to handle these supplies from Canada.

I think it is important for us to also contemplate not just the economic aspects of this source of oil to be consumed here in America but also that it is not dependent, for example, on imported oil from the Middle East and subject to weather conditions or hostile environments that might otherwise cause economic and national security concerns here in America.

We hear from time to time that Iran, which we know has growing aspirations for regional influence in the Middle East--and now, with the end of America's involvement in the Iraq war, we know Iran is going to rush in to try to fill some of that vacuum there, and I am concerned about it. But more to the point today is that 90 percent of the Persian Gulf's oil exports and 40 percent of the global seaborne oil trade goes through the Straits of Hormuz, which would be a logical first place for the Iranian Government to choke off--should they decide to create havoc--the oil supply through that vital area. The Straits of Hormuz, of course, is very important in a geopolitical sense.

The point I am simply trying to make is that this is not only a matter of jobs--but it is a matter of jobs in America with the construction of this pipeline--it is not just a matter of how we protect our environment, which is very important--how do we regulate this industry in a way that protects the health, safety, and welfare of the American people--but this is a national security issue as well.

It is also very important in terms of simply the price of gasoline. I am not an economist by training, but I do understand that when there is more of something and given that there is stable demand, you will be able to lower the price when there is a greater supply. It is purely a matter of supply and demand.

I looked online at the price of gasoline a year ago. It was $2.98 for the price of a gallon of regular gasoline. Today it is about 27 cents higher. Of course, it has been much higher, as you know. But my point is that this is a stable and secure source of oil used to make gasoline and other refined petroleum products that will help bring down or at least stabilize the price of gasoline for consumers.

We all know that in the current economic environment, people are living under much more constrained circumstances. They are having to make choices that I wish the Federal Government would make more often; that is, what things you have to have today, what things you would like to have but you can put off until tomorrow, and what things you maybe would like to have but you are going to have to end up doing without because you simply cannot afford it.

Well, gasoline is something people need in order to drive their kids to school or drive to work, and the increased price of gasoline because of geopolitical uncertainty, because of concerns about supply, disasters such as we had in the Gulf of Mexico--all of those cause disruptions or concerns about disruptions in supply that cause gas prices to go up. So this is another good reason why I believe we need a stable source of additional oil and, again, from a friendly nation, our No. 1 trading partner, which is Canada.

Let me just quickly go over a few other little factoids that people might find interesting. This is a $7 billion project. As I said, it is the largest shovel-ready infrastructure project in the United States currently. It has been under review by the Federal Government for 3 years. This is not some knee-jerk or impulsive decision we are asking to be made here; this is something that has been carefully reviewed for its environmental impact.

The good news at a time when unemployment remains unacceptably high is that this project is estimated to cause the creation of about 20,000 jobs. We all know that the No. 1 problem in America today is that too many people are out of work, the No. 2 problem in America today is that too many people are out of work, and the No. 3 problem in America today is that too many people are out of work. This would create jobs at a time when we sorely need them, and that is why this project has gained the kind of bipartisan support that gives me great hope that we will somehow knock down the impediments to building this pipeline so we can get people back to work and we can get that stable oil supply and create economic development in the private sector when we need it most.

It is estimated this pipeline would ultimately generate about $20.9 billion in new private sector spending. We all know that with the Federal Government revenue down around 15 percent of our GDP because of the recession and slow economy, while spending is up around 25 percent of GDP, we need to do two things: We need to cut Federal spending, and we also need to increase growth in the private sector which will produce additional revenue to the Treasury and help us close that deficit gap and begin to chip away at the debt. This pipeline and the jobs it would create and the tax revenues that would be generated will help do that.

This is also important to our relationship with our trading partner Canada. As the Presiding Officer knows, the North American Free Trade Agreement is a big deal in my State of Texas because of the trade agreements between Canada and the United States and Mexico. But this recognizes that our trading relationship with Canada is literally the most important one in the United States. There is something in it for us as well in that for every dollar the United States spends on Canadian products, 91 cents is returned to the United States. There is a close economic security relationship between the United States and Canada.

This pipeline would also encourage development of additional oil resources in the northern part of the United States. North Dakota currently has I believe somewhere on the order of 3 or 4 percent unemployment. One reason why it does is because they have discovered--I can get a confirmation from Senator Hoeven, perhaps, but one reason why North Dakota has been booming, in addition to great leadership, has been the fact that the Bakken formation there has been the source of a huge supply of oil. Of course, building this pipeline would help further enhance the ability to develop domestic oil and gas resources and put them in the pipeline and get them to the refinery and get them to market.

This is one of the big dangers I think we also need to highlight: In a world where we are so interconnected and where there are so many options available to our trading partners such as Canada, the fact is if we don't create this pipeline expansion for markets where these products come into the United States, then Canada is going to sell it to China or other parts of the world.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. May I remind the Senator that we are operating under a 10-minute time limit. The Senator has consumed 17 minutes and there is now another Senator on the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for another 3 minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. CORNYN. This is as close to a no-brainer as I think we can identify. But this also particularly benefits my State of Texas, which I am honored to represent. TransCanada's direct investment of about $1.6 million in Texas for the construction and development of the pipeline will lead to gains in business activity in the State of Texas of an estimated $2.3 billion in total expenditures and $2 billion in output. The increased economic activity stimulated by the TransCanadian investment in Texas will generate tax receipts in construction of an estimated $41.1 million to the State and $7.7 million to local taxing entities. Once these facilities are completed, they will have a useful life estimated at not less than 100 years. Using reasonable assumptions regarding valuation and tax rates, these assets are estimated to yield more than $1.1 billion in property taxes to local governments in the State, which are the primary source of funds for public education, among other things.

I recognize the distinguished Senator from North Dakota is here on the floor and I wish to yield to him. I appreciate the opportunity to address this issue. I would point out that this project has strong bipartisan support. I invite my colleagues--who perhaps are not as familiar with the importance of this pipeline project to the economy of the United States and job creation and who may not be aware that this is nothing new; this is something we have done before in a safe and environmentally responsible way--to join us and perhaps reconsider their view so we can get this done and help get 20,000 Americans back to work.

I yield the floor.

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