North American Energy Infrastructure Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. Chairman, this act is important. It is important for Americans.

Now, first, just to allay some fears, actually, this does not eliminate the need for Federal permitting for the entire process, but what it does is eliminate the President's ability to sit on a project, not allowing it to go forward, abusing the trust of the American people, that he is actually working in their interest, as opposed to pursuing his own narrow agenda.

Now, let's make this very clear: the fact that the President is just reviewing this is beyond credibility, but what it does do--his kind of interminable delays eliminates 20,000 to 40,000 jobs just on the one project, Keystone XL pipeline--which the other side is speaking so much of--and 100,000 indirect jobs.

By the way, when we buy products from Canada, 80 percent of the dollars that we spend there stay on the North American continent, improving the economy, not just in Canada, but also in the United States.

If we buy oil from overseas--say the Middle East--only about 40 percent of those dollars return. This is beyond the impact of building pipelines themselves, but also a global economy.

Now, the State Department--this administration's State Department has said that this project, Keystone XL pipeline, will have negligible impact on the economy. Indeed, if we continue to truck or ship by rail, more people will die--Americans will die, Mr. Chairman--than if we build a pipeline in which they anticipate, of course, there is no deaths.

One thing this will do is this will really--the opposition of the President and the other side, it will do wonders for China's economy.

Canada has just announced they are going to build a pipeline to their west coast to send these oil sands to China, creating Chinese jobs, but also Chinese pollution that, once it is into the atmosphere, will blow over onto the United States. Talk about a fruitless policy of delay.

Now, let me just finish by saying there is one more aspect of this. It helps create North American security. No longer are we buying oil from countries which hate us, financing their efforts to undermine our society; rather, we keep that money with our closest ally who, in turn, buys goods for us.

We should approve this bill and this project in particular. We should build it for Americans. It is better for the environment. It is better for our economy. Most of all, it is better for our workers.

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