Joe Manchin: “Let me just state to all of my colleagues on all sides of this issue, I appreciate this very much. It is a great debate.…”

“Let me just state to all of my colleagues on all sides of this issue, I appreciate this very much. It is a great debate. It is a great way for us to learn of our differences and try to find the middle, if you will. I come from the little State of West Virginia where basically the people are pretty commonsense, if you will, oriented. They look at something from the standpoint--our greatest trading partner in our State of West Virginia is Canada. Thirty-five States in the United States look at Canada as our favored nation to trade with. We have been doing more trading than ever before. We will continue to do so. I am coming at this from security. How do we remain secure as a nation? How do we become less dependent? If you look at what is going on in the world, maybe it will give you a picture of what we are dealing with, the facts of life. We all want to use the technology and we all can, through research and development, improve our technology to use the resources that are going to be used that the world has produced for us in a cleaner fashion. With that being said, I do not look at Keystone as being an export pipeline. Even the State Department's environmental impact statement states that export is unlikely to be economically justified for any significant time. Cost-to-market conditions dictate that this oil will go to domestic refiners and will be used in our country, the United States of America.…”