Keystone XL pipeline Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Keystone XL pipeline - Essay Example â€Å"351 major infrastructure projects in the United States are caught up in regulatory or public acceptance hurdles (sometime the former triggered by the latter), including almost every kind of energy infrastructure imaginable from coal mining to transmission lines to solar or wind power generation facilities† (Ladislaw and Pumphrey). Besides, even if the project is rejected, the problem is not over as America still has to deal with a lot of issues. However, if it is accepted, it will give a boost to the American economy. The Perryman Group is a company of economic analysts in the USA who conducted an independent study and found that the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would create an estimated 50000 spin-off and construction jobs which would range for at least a year in Texas alone. In addition to that, the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would create many opportunities of employment indirectly. Above 250000 permanent jobs for Americans would be created by a permanent increase in the supply of oil. The annual expenditures in the USA would be increased by US$100 billion (Minicucci). What further justifies the US reliance upon the oil reserves in Canada is the fact that there are some two trillion barrels of oil in the sands in Canada which is eight times as much oil as is found in the reserves in Saudi Arabia (Minicucci). The Alberta oilsands are a huge source of jobs in Canada. More than 140,000 jobs can be attributed to the Alberta oilsands. Thus, approval of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline would break the USA free of its economic dependency upon the Middle East to a large extent. Environmentalists have opposed the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline because it would prove a potential risk to a huge aquifer. There is a lot of subjectivity in the estimated risks. The environmentalists are â€Å"hell-bent on stopping the pipeline and, as a result, keeping the nation’s