[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12325]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE PRESS CONFERENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, time is up. It is time for the 
administration to quit stalling and make a decision on the Keystone XL 
pipeline project, the pipeline that comes from our friends in Canada 
from Alberta all the way down to my congressional district in southeast 
Texas, to the refineries in Port Arthur, Texas.
  The House has done its job this week by passing a bill to move this 
decision along. Now it's the Senate's turn to pass this bill so that 
the administration finally makes a decision on the Keystone XL project 
that will create thousands of American jobs and decrease our dependence 
on unfriendly nations for energy.
  I commend my friend from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for passing this 
legislation and being the spearhead of this legislation.
  All that has to happen is the State Department has to make a decision 
and the administration has to support that decision one way or the 
other. It's been 3 years for the administration to make a decision, yes 
or no, on the XL pipeline. It's time to fish or cut bait. Pick a horse 
and ride it. The administration must make a decision.
  And this should be, to me, an easy choice for this administration. 
Either they can force Americans to continue to rely on unfriendly 
foreign countries for our energy, like Venezuela and the Middle Eastern 
dictators, by depriving Americans of a reliable source of oil at a time 
when gas prices are around $4, or they can work with our friends in the 
north to supply over 1.4 million barrels of oil per day.
  Pipelines are the proven and safe, efficient source of energy. Best 
of all, this project creates thousands of jobs at a time when 
unemployment in this country is 9.2 percent. And it is climbing. I 
would think this job-creating, shovel-ready project--which my liberal 
friends always talk about--would be something they would support and 
the administration would support.
  As the administration continues to stonewall our own domestic 
production, we must safely and immediately look for ways to meet energy 
needs.
  The country needs energy. It needs jobs. This project provides both. 
What's the holdup, Mr. President?
  For every barrel of oil shipped a thousand miles, less than one 
teaspoon of liquid is lost from a pipeline. Transporting goods by 
pipeline has the lowest carbon footprint as compared with other 
transportation modes. Crude oil has to get to America some way. It 
either comes by barge or truck or rail or marine, and pipelines 
historically are the safest way to transport crude oil.
  Attacking a pipeline on environmental grounds seems to be absurd to 
me. Pipelines have been the most cost-effective and environmentally 
sound way to transport oil and natural gas. A medium-sized pipeline, 
which is about 150,000 barrels a day, requires operating more than 750 
trucks or a 75-car train every day to transport the same amount of 
crude oil.
  Transporting oil through a pipeline is far safer than using 
transportation by oil tankers. When an oil tanker has a major oil 
spill, millions of barrels of oil can be spilled in a matter of a few 
minutes, a few hours, or just a few days.
  Nearly half a million miles of natural gas and crude oil pipelines 
are in the United States--500,000 miles of pipeline. Over half of these 
are in the State of Texas alone--270,000 miles of pipeline. And about 
one-third of all of the Nation's pipelines, I understand, go through 
the energy capital of the world, my district in southeast Texas.
  If we don't use the crude oil from Canada in this pipeline, the 
Canadians could very easily, instead of having a north-to-south 
pipeline, have a pipeline east-to-west and pipe it to the west coast, 
and then ship it to our good buddies, the Chinese, who want to buy it.
  You know, America's energy plan seems to be twofold: send money to 
Brazil and let the Brazilians drill off their coast, and we'll buy 
their crude oil; and the second part is, make sure we use those cute 
little curly CFL light bulbs. And that's it.
  It's time that we take care of ourselves. This is a good project for 
America, American jobs, and a way to get crude oil into the United 
States. It's time for the White House to make a decision.
  And that's just the way it is.

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