So, Congressman Jim Matheson supports the Keystone Pipeline because he says it will give America energy independence from American-hating petro-states. Anyone even remotely informed about Keystone knows that it is to be a transcontinental conduit to transport ecocidal Canadian tar-sand crude to U.S. refineries for export to Europe and Japan. This is common knowledge; Matheson knows this, yet chooses to lie straight-faced to his constituency. That is why the pipeline is planned to go to the Gulf Coast!
Matheson’s intent, of course, is to secure campaign funding from the petroleum lobby. Slathered with Big Oil money, he can slide into another term as Utah’s environmental congressman. To appeal to the conservative voting bloc in his district, he will make much of American energy independence defunding alleged terrorists in Islamic petro-states, and creating jobs for Americans. All of which are, well, lies. Some temporary construction jobs will be created, perhaps a few at refineries, and terrorism will still be funded by any and all that profit from continued instability, whether they be private or public.
Matheson’s support of Keystone is support of the dirtiest oil of all. This Canadian tar-sands wasteland is vast, toxic and sterilized. The clear waters of the region are boiled away to cook the oil out of the tar, drying up and polluting rivers and groundwater reserves. Fisheries are killed and wildlife is displaced and extinguished, as are the First Nations People of the region for the profits of the involved industrial interests, their shareholders and the politicians in their pockets.
Utah’s “environmental” congressman will likely come out against the tar-sands mining projects of southern Utah, you know, to get the vote of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance crowd. This will expose the hypocrisy of himself and the majority of the political class of which he is a part.
CLEE PAUL AMES
Eureka