OPINION | EDITORIAL: Death of a pipeline

Better headline: Earth to Joe

After years of debate, after years of struggle, after years of approved permits and disapproved permits, after years of back-and-forth as the White House changed political hands again and again, the Keystone XL pipeline is officially dead. The obit was in the Business section.

The Greens are thrilled. The Joe Biden administration wouldn't reverse the permit cancellations (ordered on his first day as president) and so the sponsor of the Keystone XL pulled the plug this week. Calgary-based TC Energy said it would work to safely terminate the project.

So all this means something good for the environment, no? That there will be fewer emissions choking our lungs, no? That the oil in the Candian oil sands will stay underground, no?

No.

Well, likely no. The oil is coming out, and will be refined somewhere, most likely. If the Canadians send it to China or elsewhere, it's not likely the refineries will be as clean as those in the United States. But it's more likely that the oil will actually be trucked into the United States later.

Trucks burn fossil fuels. Pipelines don't. Also, pipelines are less prone to accidents than trucks or even trains. So the likelihood of a spill has increased. So in the name of . . . something ... the administration has likely only made things worse from an environmental point of view. All this from a president who wants to be known as the man who built back our infrastructure "better." That is, he wants good paying jobs and fewer fossil fuel emissions.

He had it with the Keystone XL pipeline. He gave it up to please the radical left in his party. We fail to see how that helps the world.

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