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Energy, jobs, economic growth and energy security

This week, the Washington Post Fact Checker awarded President Obama its maximum of four Pinocchios for claiming in an interview with Fargo’s WDAY television that the Keystone XL pipeline “is for Canadian oil to send that down to the Gulf” and that “it bypasses the United States.”

The Post Fact Checker disagreed: “When Obama first started making the claim that the crude oil in the Keystone pipeline would bypass the United States, we wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios – and strongly suggested he take the time to review the State Department report. Clearly, the report remains unread.”

We, in fact, have been making the case for the Keystone XL pipeline project on its merits, relying in large part on the administration’s own State Department report. We have stressed the fact that it is about energy, jobs, economic activity and building the right kind of energy infrastructure we need as part of our plan for energy security. That means we need to build the right mix of pipelines, rail and roads to move oil to market as safely and cost effectively as possible. A strong infrastructure plan is particularly important as we are locked in a battle with OPEC to see who will supply energy to the United States in the future.

Specifically, the Keystone XL pipeline will carry 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day from North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken region. That is attested to by the president’s own State Department environmental review, which finds not only that the project poses no significant risk to the environment, but also that the oil it carries will be both U.S. and Canadian oil and that the vast majority of it and its refined products will stay in the U.S.

The Keystone XL pipeline is good for the nation, and the American people agree. The bill I introduced to approve the project has now passed both chambers of Congress and the American public has made clear in poll after poll they support it. The Obama administration’s own State Department reports that it will have no significant impact on the environment, and every state through which it will pass has approved the project. It’s time to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

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