Political Quotes

“To respond to the Senator from Texas, of course, by not having a median pipeline infrastructure we are forced to move oil by other means and that means primarily railcars, and it is overburdening our rail system. As you have seen, we have had accidents, and it is just the overburdening of the current capacity of our rail system. For example, in North Dakota we produce a million barrels of oil a day. Over 700,000 now has to move by rail car because we don't have adequate pipelines. So this is not just about bringing oil from Canada to the United States. It is also about moving oil from States such as Montana and North Dakota to refineries in the most efficient and safest way possible. For example, the Keystone XL Pipeline on the day it opens will take 500 trucks a day off some of our roads in the western part of our State. So it is clearly a safety issue. The State Department says if this pipeline isn't built, to move that amount of oil you would have to move 1,400 railcars a day. That is 14 unit trains of 100 railcars a day. Clearly, we don't have that rail capacity. Clearly we don't have that rail capacity, so we need this vital infrastructure. We can't develop the energy in this country and work with Canada to truly become energy independent without vital infrastructure, which this project represents.”