Lee Terry: “Why are many of us on the House floor tonight after regular business talking about the Keystone Pipeline? Because it's a…”

“Why are many of us on the House floor tonight after regular business talking about the Keystone Pipeline? Because it's a win-win--20,000 immediate contracting support jobs for the construction of a 1,700-mile pipeline from Alberta, Canada, down to our refineries in south Texas and then over to Louisiana. Beginning when this pipeline is finished, it will bring about 600,000, 700,000 barrels of oil to the United States from our good friend, Canada. {time} 1920 Now, just to put that amount in perspective, $700,000, they expect that by the time it's fully operational it will be $1 million. To put it in context, today we are importing 900,000 barrels from Venezuela. We import 1.2 million from Saudi Arabia. So take it which way you want, but our friends from Canada, Alberta, just a few hundred miles north of our border, will produce enough oil to almost completely offset the heavy crude from Venezuela or Saudi Arabian oil. The reality, my friends, is that we have enough energy resources in the United States and Canada to be free of OPEC oil. Now, we talk about 20,000 direct jobs from a $7 billion project that is sitting waiting to go. They have their project labor agreement sitting. There are union folk ready to go to work. All it has to do is be approved, the permit for this, approved by the President. Once he says yes, 20,000 people go to work and we put ourselves on a path to greater energy security.…”