Don't Get Your Pipelines Twisted In A Bunch - A Realistic Appraisal

The Keystone XL pipeline is not the Colonial pipeline, and neither are the Russia-Germany (Nord Stream 2) pipeline, and they can't be compared.

By Marc J. Rauch
Author of THE ETHANOL PAPERS
Exec. Vice President/Co-Publisher
THE AUTO CHANNEL

Marc Rauch

To begin with, issues related to the petroleum oil industries and its fuels are not Republicans vs. Democrats, or capitalists vs. socialists, or the political left vs. the political right. The issue is the oil industry and its minions (employees, investors, and paid-off politicians) vs. the rest of the world.

There are some Democrat politicians who support anything the oil industry wants, just as there are some Republican politicians who support anything the oil industry wants. Teachers will scream their heads off about the oil industry contributing to "climate change," but the teachers' unions will do anything necessary to protect and continue their profitable investments in the oil industry. Communist regimes are just as beholden to the oil industry as are capitalist regimes.

The oil industry has no allegiance to any country or to the citizens of any country. They have as little regard for their customers as the tobacco industry did. They look out only for themselves.

Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, the Keystone XL pipeline is of no value to Americans. It provides no benefit to us. I wrote about this nine years ago in my editorial "Killing the Keystone Oil Pipeline is the Correct Move."

As I said then, we don't need it. The main reason for the pipeline is to move raw Canadian oil to the Gulf of Mexico for ultimate distribution outside of the United States. Canada is a great country, it's citizens are beautiful and talented, and I wish them all the success they can handle. But America doesn't need to sacrifice its great country, environment, and our own beautiful people to benefit oil industry denizens that don't give a damn about either country, nor do we need to sacrifice ourselves any further to fulfill the fuel requirements of countries like communist China.

On the other hand, the Colonial pipeline is completely different. It supplies finished oil products to Americans (primarily along the eastern seaboard). As much as I dislike America having to use and rely on deadly, dirty oil-based fuels, at least it's to fulfill American fuel requirements. Shutting down the Colonial pipeline - for whatever reason - hurts Americans by denying Americans of needed fuel, and by artificially inflating the price of fuels in the rest of the country. Incidentally, there is no reason whatsoever for the price of gasoline, diesel, and natural gas to have risen since the hack of the Colonial pipeline. It is a matter of sheer greed on the part of the oil industry. In any event, there is no correlation between the Keystone XL pipeline and the Colonial pipeline. The former is not needed, the latter is needed.

The so-called "Russian pipeline" (Nord Stream 2) delivers fuel to Germany from Russia. Some people who are beholden to the oil industry, or just confused, seem to think that support for the building of Nord Stream 2 should be consistent with building the Keystone XL. The two pipelines have nothing to do with each other. In case anyone has forgotten, Germany is not part of the United States of America. It is not our 51st state, nor is it a territory of the United States (like Puerto Rico and Guam), although our financial and military support of Germany has cost us enough to have made Germany another non-contiguous state (like Alaska and Hawaii).

The United States has no say on the matter. Germany is free to do whatever they want, even if it's to connect with their long-time arch enemy, Russia. Perhaps it's time for Germany to surrender itself to Russia, once and for all, and for Russia to take on the full burden of supporting a united Germany filled with needy refugees. Germany's chancellor is an old Marxist and Sovietophile, so she should be right at home kowtowing to any Russian dictator. They all deserve each other.

Therefore, we have nothing to say about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Joe Biden's approval or disapproval of it is no more relevant than any opinion he may have on Martian canals*. And remember, the last several times we interfered with one foreign country's petroleum aspirations on another foreign country's oil resources it led us into war (think WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).

The solution to America's engine fuel requirements is NOT more petroleum oil-based fuels, it is ethanol... Ethanol produced using American grown crops and materials, and finished in American distilleries. Ethanol production and distribution can more jobs in America than the petroleum industry, and replace any job lost by shuttering the Keystone XL pipeline.

* There are no canals on Mars, but don't tell Joe.

ALSO SEE: What The Colonial Pipeline Shutdown Teaches US About Ethanol Fuel.