Political Dynamics of the Keystone Pipeline Research Paper

Political Dynamics of the Keystone Pipeline - Research Paper Example This expansion accomplishes several goals. The first one would be to expand the line from Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico, alleviating a current bottleneck of oil, sitting in Cushing, OK. At the other end on the Gulf Coast of Texas, there are plenty of refineries to handle this oil and get it out for transportation and export (State Impact web). In the second part, there would be a new section built, running from Alberta to Kansas, which will pass through the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota and Montana and, subsequently, pick up oil currently being extracted, and add it for transport. In Texas, the new expansion would cover 16 counties in the northern and eastern sections. The Texas Gulf Coast pipeline, known as the Southern, is already being built, as of January 2014 and the Phase III section, but the big controversy is the future plan to carry heavy Canadian tar sands oil within the next year. Currently, it transports 700,000 barrels of U.S. light crude oil and the plan is to bring the transport up to 830,000 barrels daily, about the time that the tar sands oil component is added (State Impact web; Fitzsimmons web). The President has been stalling on making a decision, primarily because he wants to know more about the tar sands situation and whether this will compromise the environmental safe air regulations currently in place. The extra pipeline, the Northern, for which the northern section also crosses international borders, requires a Presidential Permit that will pass through the State Department. TransCanada points out that it is â€Å"50 feet of pipe† for the one section (State Impact web). The current Southern pipeline which crosses the border from Alberta, ending in Oklahoma, is due for Presidential review (See appendix A for map). The Issue of Tar Sands Oil. Canada has the largest supply of tar/oil sand which is mined on the surface, and represents about 75