Trump Is on the Right Side of the Pipeline Debate

President Donald Trump's executive actions this week give fresh hope to the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access pipelines. And that's the way it should be. We applaud Trump's executive action to ease the way for the government to reconsider its review and renegotiate terms of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline, which would transport tar sands crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries in Texas, has become one of the most studied and politicized pipelines in recent U.S. history. It was approved at numerous stages of development, at one point even by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but former President Barack Obama waffled on it, creating new hurdles for it to scale before rejecting the proposal in 2015.The Keystone pipeline is not the grand jobs engine as its supporters claim, but neither is it a dire threat to the environment as opponents contend. It's a pipeline, just like the many thousands of miles of other pipelines that move crude oil and gas from one end of the United States to another. Pipelines are safer than shipping oil on trucks, tankers and rail cars, and the economic and national security benefits in this case outweigh environmental risks.  Continue reading...