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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (633730)	10/29/2011 11:59:40 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1573249

Tar sands pipeline will comfort our enemies By Steven M. Anderson, retired Army brigadier general, and senior mentor with the Army’s Battle Command Training Program - 10/25/11 11:21 AM ET As the military’s senior logistician in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, I saw the impact of our oil addition in the Iraq combat zone. Our appetite for fuel wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, transfers $1 billion daily in our wealth to the Middle East, and puts our soldiers at risk. The fuel trucks we depend upon provide hundreds of convenient rolling targets for our enemy. My experiences in Iraq convinced me that the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and that Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late. The Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t help. This pipeline would move dirty oil from Canada to refineries in Texas and would set back our renewable energy efforts for at least two decades, much to our enemies’ delight. It would ensure we maintain our oil addiction and delay making the tough decisions regarding energy production, management and conservation that we need to start making today. Transcanada, the company that would own the pipeline, makes various claims about the pipeline’s supposed security benefits. It claims the pipeline will reduce dependence on Mideast oil, that tar sands will feed a growing US demand, and that it will provide a supply cushion in times of natural or man-made disasters. None of these claims holds up. Transcanada says the project will supply roughly half of the amount of oil the US imports from the Middle East and Venezuela – but conveniently leaves out a crucial detail: This tar sands oil will not reduce imports from those nations. The Keystone XL is an export pipeline. Valero Energy Corporation, the pipeline’s largest customer, has explicitly told investors that it plans to focus its Port Arthur refinery on exports. Canadian oil won’t replace imports from hostile countries because Texas refiners are serving global demand rather than domestic need. When pipeline advocates talk about rising demand, they ignore some very good news: US oil consumption is on a steady decline, and small measures could reduce that consumption even further. According to the Department of Energy, gasoline demand in the US will decline through 2030, because of efficiency standards. We could reduce that by another 4 million barrels a day by requiring more efficient heavy trucks, airplanes, and buildings. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the reduction could be up to 7 million barrels a day. Further focus on efficiency and innovation is the only realistic method of reducing US dependence on oil imports – especially from those nations hostile to us. This reduction in demand would make tar sands oil – the world’s most expensive oil to produce – uncompetitive and unwanted. The Keystone XL pipeline will not mitigate oil market fluctuations, nor will it reduce the cost of oil. OPEC controls most of the world’s oil, and sets oil prices. Construction of the pipeline – a drop in the bucket of the world oil market - will not change that. – Tar sands oil only maintains the status quo of directly and indirectly helping fund terrorists and rogue nations that want to kill Americans with our very own petrodollars. Hardly a benefit to our national security. Moreover, the International Energy Agency shows that if we reduce our demand for oil in line with stabilizing climate change, OPEC revenues would be $5 trillion less over the next two decades compared with business as usual. Which strategy do you think OPEC countries would prefer us to pursue? Finally, construction of the pipeline would give politicians another excuse to roll back efficiency standards and investment in clean alternative energy, exacerbating global climate change. This could be disastrous. In 2007, CNA Corporation, a defense analysis operation, wrote, "climate change is a threat multiplier in already fragile regions, exacerbating conditions that lead to failed states -- the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism." In 2010, the Pentagon followed suit, writing in its Quadrennial Defense Review that global warming impacts and disasters will "act as an accelerant of instability or conflict." Becoming energy independent must be a top priority of the United States. It certainly is for veterans like me. TransCanada and its allies know this, and cynically play on our hopes by presenting the pipeline as a solution. Let’s not be fooled. The Keystone XL pipeline would perpetuate our deadly oil dependence and will not make us more secure. Steven M. Anderson, a retired Army brigadier general, is a senior mentor with the Army’s Battle Command Training Program. thehill.com