Ed Whitfield: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for introducing this…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for introducing this motion to instruct as I think it is for the benefit of the American people. Yet, having said this in many hearings on this subject, I really am puzzled as to how people can be opposed to the Keystone pipeline. Many people have come up today who have been opposed to it, and they've talked about the necessity for jobs. The Keystone pipeline will create many jobs. As a matter of fact, we know that oil from the oil sands in Canada is already coming to America. There are over 1,000 American companies today supplying goods and services to Canadian oil sands and pipeline companies. Just to give you an example, with regard to Caterpillar, which makes the 797--the world's largest truck--the engines are made in Indiana; the cab is fabricated and installed in Illinois; the frame component is cast in Louisiana; and the Michelin tires are made in South Carolina. That's just one. I could go through here and list a multitude of companies from which jobs are being created because of the oil sands, and only more will be created if we can build this new pipeline. People say, Oh, you're going to export all this oil. Well, I genuinely believe that is a red herring. The Department of Energy, itself, did an analysis of this and said, if any oil were exported coming out of Canada, it would be a very minute amount.…”