The keystone XL Pipeline is a proposed pipeline that would run tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, bifurcating America’s heartland, and finally to refineries in Texas. The proposed pipeline would run very close to the Ogallalla Aquifer, the 174,000 square mile watershed that supplies water for about 30% of the United State’s agricultural industry. The risk of a major spill should be enough to dishearten even the most industrious oil baron. However, according to our newly elected GOP-lead House of Representatives, this is a risk they’re willing to take.

I’m not too worried about the Keystone XL Pipeline being passed. President Obama will almost certainly veto the proposal. Speaker of the House John Boehner has stated that a veto to this bill would be the equivalent to calling the American population who popularly support the pipeline “stupid”, but I really don’t think it is that “stupid” to override our people considering all of the confusions and rumors surrounding the pipeline.

The biggest misconception around it all is that the pipeline would lessen our dependency on foreign oil. While it may help that out, CNN Money states that the pipeline would most likely increase our percentage of exported refined oil. That means that the pipeline wouldn’t really save the average American anything at the pump, which is hopefully the main goal of the pipeline.

There are certain economic stimuli associated with the building of something as large as the Keystone Pipeline. Many proponents of the pipeline support it by saying that the building would help produce up to 119,000 jobs. This pipeline could give all our approximately 18 million unemployed American citizens jobs but that wouldn’t necessarily be a positive economic stimulus. The reason that the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s worked so well was because while it did employ the masses of unemployed Americans, it helped create positive things within the country that are still used today. A pipeline isn’t exactly something that is going to benefit the American society in the long run. Employment is kind of a void factor surrounding the pipeline considering only 50 people will be employed to maintain this pipeline after it is done being built.

So obviously if oil represents a sort of old and dirty form of energy and transportation, then something like high speed rail would represent the polar opposite. A high-speed rail would provide the same sort of employment that a pipeline would in that it would employ a large number of people until the job was complete. So say, theoretically, that we could initiate the building of a high-speed rail system that would be as employment intensive as the Keystone Pipeline, then after not only having employed a huge number of people, we would have the clean, fast, safe form of transportation that high-speed rail transportation allows. That there is the epitome of a positive economic stimulus provided by a wide-scale project.

The Keystone XL pipeline may seem like a great initiative for America, but I think there are better things to occupy our time with. I may be a little biased due to my environmental concerns, but I think we can all agree that it’s pretty illogical to transport something as foul as tar sands across our heartland.