In My View: Destroying a "Keystone" to Our Economy

The below letter to the editor is by Robert "Bob" McDowell, Jr. He is a Professional Engineer and Geologist with over 50 years experience in creating drilling prospects, supervising drilling, well completion, production operation, and pipeline design for oil and gas including repair of problem wells. McDowell is a conservative and active in the Oklahoma Republican Assembly.

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By Bob McDowell: Even those of us with only a modest understanding of how the business world operates, we are aware that to have a growing and healthy economy, it is critical to have available an abundant supply of moderate to low priced energy. Since the beginning of the machine age, commerce relied on water power, then coal, electricity, oil, and natural gas and economical and on a rapid means of getting this energy to its users. In the beginning, with the use of water power to turn the wheels of manufacturing, it was necessary to build the plants at the source, namely dams with water wheels.

Skipping ahead to my generation, during WWII, the Roosevelt administration instituted 'gas rationing' which severely limited the amount of driving that could be done by Americans. The story was that there was a shortage of gasoline and it was needed for the "war effort." In actuality, and this is first hand observation and information, there was an over-supply of gasoline in the center of the nation where the oil production was located. In fact, my Dad who was an oil company marketing director often stated that "the tanks at the refinery were running over," perhaps a slight exaggeration.

The actual reason for the rationing was that German U-Boats were sinking the tankers taking the material from the Gulf Coast to the East Coast where there was indeed a shortage. Because Mr. Roosevelt was from the New England (former New York Governor), he could not be tolerated for us in the center of the U.S. to have enough and for those elesewhere to be be suffering. In fairness, another excuse was to lower the wear on tires and the demand for for new tires. All our rubber came from tropical lands, many of which had been seized by the Japanese in the South Pacific.

Despite the need for steel in the war effort, a massive and emergency construction project was undertaken to construct a "big inch" pipeline from Oklahoma to the East Coast for both crude oil and products. Of course, such a project cannot be built in a few days. This project was 'ground breaking' since major pipelines had not been previously built across the major Eastern rivers such as the Mississippi and Ohio. The pipeline was built! And, it provided a shorter journey for the ouil products to be water shipped to the East coast and on to the European war zone. The route by sea around Florida from the Gulf of Mexico was no longer needed. It was said that "the war was won on a sea of US oil" and almost all of the oil was produced within our own borders.

Now, due to restrictions instituted by the Government, we import a large percentage of our crude oil, but not the finished products of gasoline, jet fuel, diesel, lubricants, etc. In fact, last year's official reports state that oil products were the largest amount, in dollars, of exports from our borders. This seems situation seems out of kilter. However, our Government through agencies like the EPA has placed huge amounts of land and sea off limits for oil and gas exploration and production. Unfortunately, the majority of the oil imported arrives in tanker ships, with the expense, delay, and possible disruption of supply at sea.

Actually, not a whole lot of this oil originates in the Middle East, but comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela (whose government hates us), and other Western Hemisphere nations. And now to the current situation, A Canadian company has plans that would build a major pipeline, aka, the Keystone XL Pipeline, from Canada across the US to Cushing OK and on then onto the Gulf Coast refineries which are equipped to refine the heavy 'tar sands' oil from Alberta. The Obama administration has not approved the route and the Canadian company has announced that it is considering plans to send their oil to British Columbia for shipment, by tanker to China.

These detrimental actions to continually delay or to even prevent the Keystone pipeline leads to the reasonable conclusion that it is the agenda of the present administration is to bring the U.S. economy to its knees and to turn our country into a third world nation. If this happens, we will no longer be free citizens but will be the slaves to this present and future elite dictatorial administrations.

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Editorial Note: For more information on the Keystone XL pipeline, consider the following articles:

• Newspapers, Dems, Labor Unions Blast Obama for Nixing Keystone Pipeline
• Things you NEED to know about KeystoneXL Pipeline!

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