The U.S. reliance on overseas energy has long been a national security concern. Writing at TownHall.com, CEA’s Michael Whatley breaks down why it is so important for the United States to move ahead with building the Keystone XL Pipeline.
If there were any doubt about the importance of pipelines to national security, it ought to have been erased by recent events in Crimea and Ukraine as the Russian Bear has pawed away the former from the latter. Europe is vulnerable because 16% of its natural gas comes through Ukraine. It is a powerful reminder of why the Keystone XL Pipeline is critical to our own national security.
The Keystone XL Pipeline will deliver 830,000 barrels of oil per day to the Gulf Coast and reduce American dependence on oil from rapidly deteriorating and unstable Venezuela and the ever volatile Middle East by up to 40 percent.
Consider the implications of this. If the 830,000 barrels of oil per day were refined into gasoline, the yield would be 15 million gallons of gasoline per day according to the Energy Information Administration.