Center for Rural Affairs: Keystone XL Wrong Solution for U.S. Energy, Prairie Economy

Hat tip to Great Plains Tar Sands Pipelines!

Remember that corporate claptrap our state senator Russell Olson (R-8/Madison) was spewing about why he voted to give TransCanada millions of dollars in tax refunds for the Keystone I pipeline so South Dakota could enjoy all sorts of economic and energy security benefits, even though North Dakota and Nebraska got the same benefits without giving away any such refunds?

Well, the Center for Rural Affairs weighs in on the pending Keystone XL pipeline to say those benefits don't outweigh the risks to our environment and our economic future. Last week, the Center for Rural Affairs declared its opposition to Keystone XL:

"America must focus on better approaches to securing the energy it needs by developing renewable energy, especially renewable approaches to fueling cars," said John Crabtree, Media Director at the Center for Rural Affairs. "We support developing clean energy resources that we have right here in Nebraska, like wind energy, not increasing our reliance on dirty, foreign energy that we have to pipe in from afar."

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that securing oil from tar sands and delivering it to U.S. refineries results in nearly double the greenhouse gas emissions as other oil delivered to U.S. refineries.

According to Crabtree, in the long-run, hybrid electric cars powered by renewable sources such as wind and low carbon biofuels will create more jobs and far greater economic opportunity in rural America while confronting the very real threat of climate change [Center for Rural Affairs, press release, 2010.10.12].

Crabtree cites TransCanada's willingness to cut corners with thinner steel and its strong-arm tactics against Nebraska landowners as further reason that Big Oil boosters like Senator Olson are putting the interests of foreign oil corporations ahead of the interests of rural America.