WASHINGTON, DC - House Energy and Commerce leaders today touted the job creation and energy security benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline and urged their colleagues in the House of Representatives to join them in supporting legislation that would allow construction on the shovel-ready project to begin. The House opened debate today on the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, which includes language authored by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the pipeline within 30 days.
“We have in the Keystone pipeline a company willing to invest $7 billion in private funds at no expense to the taxpayer. This would ultimately bring nearly a million barrels of additional oil per day from Canada to the U.S. Even the president’s job council agrees -they suggested that the pipeline is a win-win-win for job creation, modernizing the nation’s infrastructure, and helping ultimately to lower gasoline prices in America," said Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY).
“The language we’re discussing at this current time is about allowing the Keystone pipeline a path forward. It’s based on the bill I introduced back in December, which is H.R. 3548. Keep in mind that the President of the United States killed the Keystone pipeline. We think that was kowtowing to the environmental extremists -some of which may be in the House of Representatives or represented here today -but the reality is, it was a wrong decision," said Terry. “It is in the best interest of our nation to have the Keystone pipeline bringing oil from the Alberta oil sands into the United States where it can be refined and used in the United States, offsetting imported oil from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. The Keystone pipeline would take these supplies from Canada, use them in the United States, creating tens of thousands of jobs over a two-year to two-and-a-half year construction phase with permanent jobs thereafter to maintain the pipeline and its pumps along the 1,700 mile pipeline."
