Support for Keystone XL is a mistake

Despite President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL Pipeline, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and a group of 43 other senators have announced they will seek to introduce legislation that would create jobs by approving the Keystone XL pipeline. The 1,700-mile long project would transport crude oil from Canada to the United States. President Obama said the administration needed more time in order to review the environmental impact in Nebraska. Manchin, being the lone Democrat in the pro-pipeline group of senators, is no stranger to expressing his support for unsafe and unclean energy sources in the state, but now he gets to do so on a national level.

Environmentalists pushed for the president to block the bill because the oil that would flow through the pipeline, Canadian oil sands, is a bigger pollutant than other grades of oil. TransCanada has said it plans to apply for another presidential permit, a process which would stretch beyond the 2012 presidential election. If any of the Republican 2012 presidential hopefuls make it into office, the plan will certainly be approved. Mitt Romney has been one of the president's biggest critics in regard to the pipeline, accusing him of pandering to environmentalists. Finally, when a politician makes an environmentally responsible decision, he gets attacked for it.

When are legislators going to realize that the future does not lay in these seemingly archaic energy methods? Cheerleaders of these environmentally harmful projects attempt to justify such legislation with the war cry of job creation. But something Manchin and these Republican senators do not seem to understand is the health of the population should always trump jobs.

It is not even a certainty that the oil which would flow through the pipeline would stay in the U.S. In fact, the bill ,as written, states that oil will indeed be sold to other countries. This disproves Republicans' argument that it would give the U.S. more energy security by making us less reliant on unstable and hostile nations. Apparently, Republicans are comfortable with exploiting Nebraska and Texas to make a quick export.

It pains me to live in a country with so many resources while we have yet to seriously explore avenues of cleaner forms of energy. We've become a nation of coal, natural gas and oil addicts. We as a country need to shy away from these harmful methods of energy.

Katie Quinonez at quinonez@marshall.edu.