Not everyone will remember the Keystone Cops; they were a bumbling group of policemen from the early days of silent movies and slapstick. Today we live in a world where people forget things from even from a few years ago. The Keystone XL pipeline was expected to carry 830,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil sands crude to Nebraska. There were massive protests from environmental groups which ended up putting the entire project on hold. Many indigenous populations had fought for over a decade to defend their water and land rights against fossil fuel companies and lost during the President Biden’s administration.
As soon as gas prices in the US began to soar, firstly because of inflation, secondly due to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Republicans began to complain all over social media attacking environmentalists for their stance on shutting down the Keystone Pipeline because of environmental concerns.
More energy is required to extract oil from the Alberta oil sands than in traditional drilling, and Environment Canada says it has found industry chemicals seeping into ground water and the Athabasca River. This risk to local communities is one of the reasons many have opposed the project.
From BBC.com Jan 21, 2021: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30103078
Now we learn that:
600,000 gallons of crude oil were leaked in what has become worst U.S. spill in a decade, marking 23rd oil spill from Keystone pipeline system.
All of this of course begs the question, why did the Keystone Pipeline System move forward instead of getting shut down? All in the name of lowering gas prices, or political patronage.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8jphxpi1ro" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>From where I sit, I see current US system of politics very
