Keystone Pipeline Benefits

After evaluating both the environmental impacts of the Keystone XL Pipeline as well as the economic benefits it would ensure, our group opposes its completion. As previously mentioned, although the pipeline would allow Canada to achieve economic success and provide energy security for the United States, these benefits do not outweigh the costs. According to Dr. Jerald L. Schnoor, a distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa, the EPA has been developing new regulations to promote fuel efficiency that would save people thousands of dollars in fuel costs, which would decrease the demand for oil (Schnoor, 3943). Rather than focusing on the potential economic success of the pipeline, we should assess …show more content…
("Keystone XL Pipeline: Why Is It so Disputed?" BBC News). The completed, operating pipeline would allow our society to not only continue our negative ecological consumer habits, it would encourage us to expand and amplify these practices. In the article, BBC News stated that the pipeline has received immense opposition from various community members and groups because of the risk of spillage that could create health hazards for residents in the surrounding area ("Keystone XL Pipeline: Why Is It so Disputed?" BBC News). Another negative effect of the pipeline is that it violates treaty agreements between the First nations people in Northern Alberta and the Canadian federal government. BBC News states, “First Nations groups...have even gone so far as to sue the provincial and federal government for damages from 15 years of oil sands development they were not consulted on” ("Keystone XL Pipeline: Why Is It so Disputed?" BBC News ). The damages caused by this pipeline ultimately serve as an example of the continued marginalization of indigenous people and the exploitation their homelands by large corporations and governments who are supposed to protect