Hashtag ajam stream, we talk about, we dont get oil from north america. If true, why destroy our land. Peter talks about the farmers, talk about the land thats going to be condemned. The flip side, oil will be moved one way or the other, all these name callers they should grow up and then anna says my support for this pipeline is based on the current geopolitical reality. Well somehow figure this all out in 26 minutes. Theyre stacked up. How do people debate. The keystone southern leg is supposed to be ready in 2016. This part of the pipeline still has to be approved by president obama, since it crosses the border. Activists and land owners, say, its not going to be going in without a fight. Whats at stake is civilization at the baseline. Adds to higher Carbon Emissions contributing to climate change. Will provide much needed jobs and energy independence. Meanwhile, land owners feel, they are caught in the middle. They can take a payout or face Eminent Domain which can force them off of their land and out of their homes whether they agree to it or not. Do the benefits outweigh the Environmental Concerns . Cindy shields and Jason Kowalski and danny hendricks, a manager for pipe fitters union, and why many a representative of ogroup that post office the pipeline. We use skype and google hangout, not always perfect but it allows us to reach most of the country which is important to us. Cindy, explain to us where and how it is operational. Sure, thank you for having me on tonight. We have been discussing this for a while. What happened was the project was bifurcated. The president sidetracked this area which releaves the bottleneck which we had extra supplies stored in christian, oklahoma, to increase our production in our upper plain states as well as canada down to our Refining Center in the gulf. So this connectivity will allow that to happen. And the reason this importance has you know been upped over the past several years is the change in supply flows. We university to import more oil from venezuela, mexico. Those imports have been decreasing. Canada, our supplier and. Partner of oil, we have been importing for decades, this is the opportunity to increase that benefit. Jane, we have been using oil sands for decades, a large portion already exists. Whats the controversy. Farmers and ranchers dont think its our responsibility to bail canada out of a bad investment of tar sands. Their main goal is to get as much tar sands to export as possible to make as much profit as possible. We would rather diversify our Energy Portfolio here in america, it means a lot of solar wind and other Renewable Energy like ethanol. Thats where our country needs to go. If canada wants to refine and export tar sands they can do it on their watch not risking our land and water. Jason who are the players . For us there are a few players. The many oil industry, common sense people who dont want to risk our land and water so the 1 cant get richer. They know this is a bad investment and will be gameover for the climate. Here we have our facebook community. Woody says im dialed with keystone only if there are rm restrictions i restrictions n place. Then kathy says the Keystone Pipeline is game over. Cindy going to go with you, two years ago the state Department Released a report saying the Keystone Pipeline, had corrupt fittings and valve stations, that in itself is a bit troubling. How do we ensure that transcanada maintains a standard where theres no spirls . Sure, that should be spills . Sure, thats been discussed quite a bit. The Safety Record of the industry, the pipeline industry of transporting the product or crude to the refinery, is over 99. 99 . Its strong. But some incidents, it is a Risky Business and accidents may happen. It is unfortunate, we do our best as an industry to put mechanisms in place to learn from them, to improve upon whatever best practices standard already exist. Its no excuse, no accident is ever acceptable, certainly for the land owners impacted. But we have the Emergency Response procedures in place. The industry also is required, by law, to work with Emergency Response personnel. They have plans in advance. And do their best to get there and clean up spills quickly and restore, do the restoration process that is required and is in their benefit as well. Regarding those specific spills, when you talk about the 14 specific to fittings and the valves, youre talking about all very minor releases which were less than reportable quantities. And thats why they are preferenced the way they are. They are not significant. Lets take a second here to look at a commercial by transcanada. We see it every day. Unrest halfway around the globe affects us here at home. America imports millions of barrels of oil from the middle east every week. But we dont have to. Along with increased domestic development, the Transcanada Pipeline could stabilize the are import of oil, over 40,000 american jobs. Lets beat the transcanada xl are pipeline. Cindy, what garnlts are there that guarantees are that oil will stay here and be used here, and not shipped off to china or india or elsewhere . Great question. We tend to look at it in terms of energy security, when we reference all the options jane mentioned earlier. We are in support of all forms of energy. We just do not believe that any one form should be precluded over any other. We support renewables. We support you know, the ability to develop in our upper plain states as well as the ability to bring in canadas oil. You know were already seeing canadas oil, the oil sands, make its way to the gulf, make its way to the other markets. So the question is, how efficiently you want that done. How for consumers time and time again its showing every poll labor at large supports the pipeline. Go ahead. If api supports all forms of energy why are you guys working against the renewable standards that the epa are doing . And afp are doing the same. You actually misled folks against the spills, they were so significant that they had to close down keystone 1, the earliest they have had to do that on a new construction pipeline. On top of that on your southern leg that just got put into the ground in texas and oklahoma youve had over 60 land owners property redug up because there was a problem. There was a problem with the pipeline being laid and you knew it. I think theres different versions of the facts that you just stated jane. The Safety Records a lot better than the industry flak. You can give fimsa about the Safety Record as well and they will confirm that its over 99. 99 . Lots of people are protesting the pipeline for a variety of reasons. Are up next a nebraska farmer jones us to talk about why she feels that her land is at risk. From our headquarters in new york, here are the headlines this hour. Al Jazeera America is the only news channel that brings you live news at the top of every hour. A deal in the senate may be at hand and just in the nick of time. Thousands of new yorkers are marching in solidarity. Were following multiple developments on syria at this hour. Every hour from reporters stationed around the world and across the country. Only on al Jazeera America. Most of the students are black or latino, some with an undocumented parent. None were born with a silver spoon in their house. 98 qualify for free or reduced price launches. The majority of them face a challenge. It may not be their skin colour. It may be socioeconomic status. It may be being homeless. The children are quick to connect nelson mandela. I heard that he was, r Martin Luther king in another state. Ms klieforth says her students are bringing their personal experiences to the classroom. The kids tell stories. I walked into a store and felt like people treated me differently. It. Its cool. What he did he didnt came, if a. The debate is on over the final phases of the Keystone Pipeline. We are going to continue to talk about that. Were going to switch gears now, how the issue will impact land owners. Talk about how the Keystone Pipeline is impacting the land you love and your livelihood. The land we love, a toxic pipeline being placed in the ground that we farm for the end of time. So we are very concerned about what it would mean to have this pipeline laid, through our farm ground. Well, but jenny werent you given guarantees by transcanada, if something were to go side ways wouldnt they take care of it . You know, if you want to look around on what has happened with other oil spills around the country, that guarantee does not sit very well with us. If you want to look at kalamazoo, michigan, people in mayflower r arkansas, i think my people dont know what the Economic Loss is for the communities and for the vivid people that have been affected. So sometimes, no amount of money can replace whats been damaged. And we are certainly very concerned about our water. If this pipeline would go near an irrigation well, and god forbid any of the tar sands would get down into our Irrigation Water and the ogalala aquifer, nobody on earth today knows how they would get that out or what would actually happen. Speaking about impact our Community Says you know sometimes the impact could be jobs and economy and that might outweigh the environmental risks. Tweets, morgan says, go ahead, one jobs two money and three energy security, concerns are there but without risk, no reward. Mike says yes they outweigh the legitimate concerns. J. T. Says its obvious to outweigh the positive, the risks, Environmental Issues we still dont understand the connection between the economics and environment and fine reply aria says regarding keystone, we should care more about the environment than temporary jobs. Danny hendricks, pr local 798, is the pipeline going to bring much jobs into nebraska and oklahoma . We just finished up two spreads of the keystone, on the southern end the gulf coast expansion, they are actually starting to load that line with oil. But during that project that provided 350 jobs for my members. Now were just a portion of that craft. Were like one fourth of that craft. So 350 people have jobs. 350 families have insurance. Have pension credits. There was 47 million paid in wages for those 350 people, had 8 million of benefits. We hear this term, temporary jobs, temporary jobs. Every construction job is temporary. We have a series of jobs that we make a career out of. These are real jobs and they pay good benefits. They you know, i would venture to say none of my people would take a job over creating some kind of hazard for the environment. This is the safest pipeline that will be built in the world. Now, theyre not going to quit mining the tar sands. They are going to mine it and theyre going to refine it. So all were going to figure out is how are they going to transport it . Are you going to use more rail cars and move it by rail, or by pipeline . I dont think anybody can arc that drg argue that this is the safest way to move it. The big hole in the ground is going to be safe to get it to market. The big pipeline is going to be the way to do it. Why is that occurring . First off im with dapy, i think danny, we need more jobs. Clean energy will produce three times more jobs for every dollar we invest in it than dollars invested in the fossil fuel energy. We need more clean energy. We need an independent assessment of this thing. We talked about unintended spills. One of the biggest spills is the spill of carbon into the atmosphere once this pipeline is built. Its called keystone for a reason. The Industry Needs this pipeline for a reason to unlock the carbon in the tar sands and bring it to market. Their Business Model is not complicated. They dig up as much oil and coal they possibly can and burn it as quickly as possible. They pocket the money. Thats not good for my generation that needs more jobs. Thats not good for unions in america. What we need is an independent Climate Assessment of keystone and a Clean Energy Jobs plan one that will create a string of Wind Turbines in the heart land of america, not a pipeline. He just touched on something, copenhagen summit pledged to keep the increase in Global Temperatures at no more than 2. Should this pipeline go through can that pledge be kept in the u. S . Youre looking at a country that contributes to less than 2 of global Greenhouse Gas emissions. Oil sands contribute less than a tiny fraction of that. And again, weve you know conceded, this resource is being developed. The largest source of the countrys gdp is not going osit in the ground. Its going somewhere. To sit in the ground. Its going somewhere. How do you want to get it to market most safely, most eksd peed yent expediently . Do you want it to go all around the world . And if you do care about the environment and the Greenhouse Gas issues, do you think its going to be managed better in the United States or some of the Asian Countries it may be going to . Let me interrupt, i want to get back to jai jane and cindy s well, horizontally to the pacific and rather than down through the u. S . Jane go ahead. Its been seven years since canada has made climate promises of what theyre going to do to clean up their act when it comments to oil sands. And they have yet to put any of those promises in place. And so its been seven years. You guys complain its been five years that weve been studying this pipeline when in fact we still dont have a proper Water Assessment and its been five years since canada made their promises. You cant erase the pollution youre doing to your own water and land up in canada by expanding Pipeline Capacity and thats exactly whats happening here. Saying that wait a second cindy. Youve had plenty of time. And so saying that the oil sands is going to be developed with or without this pipeline is simply not true. That doesnt bode well. Thats like saying coal is going to be developed with or without a new refinery. You need the infrastructure to get that to market. You know it, i know it, all the shareholders know it, thats why canada is going to put everything into this to get it approved. Going to break including the politics of all this. I care about Energy Company profits. Let state Department Services open your path to profits. Up next, is the state department intertwined with canada . And the xl pipeline . Your tweets on that right after the break. O. You want to build a huge pipeline through the farms, fields and valueys of americas heart land . Then tar sands and the keystone xl pipeline are for you and state Department Oil services can make it happen. Thanks to my former Deputy Campaign director who now works for Transcanada Pipeline im on board with the board room obviously that is from an Environmental Advocacy group. We are talking about the keystone xl pipeline and the politics of all of it. So jairc jairch to 2012 electio, obama was whether he was proor antixl. What does keystone mean for obama at this stage of the game . Keystone is a monumental choits for barack obama. To me as someone who voted for barack obama, it is a choice of siding with the people who helped him get elected, common sense americans who believe in Clean Energy Jobs and oreal Climate Science policy. Danny you want to jump in here . Well, i think theres been a struggle from the very beginning, instead of this being a business decision its turned into a political football and it has been kicked back and forth several different times. But the really for us, i truly believe this, that thats going oget mined and its going to continue to get moved and its going to be refined. Now we have to make that common sense connection, how are we going to move that product . Are we going omove it by rail . Because thats exactly whats going to happen, were ramping up on the rails and not going to build the pipeline. That doesnt make any sense to me. Youre not going to stop the mining of that canadian oil. Youre not going to. Cindy . I say we are going to stop the mining of that oil because its not good for our air and water and climate change. I hope you would force transcanada to use made in u. S. A. Steel. Theyre using steel from everywhere other than the United States of america. They do source their steel here. No they dont. Yes they do. As far as the politics its become a symbol for ngos with an 18th environment agenda. State department assessments, who are weighing the fit, the president will look at all the facts all the assessments, five years and counting now and make the decision thats in the interest positive our consumers and approve this pipeline. They have assessed the climate impacts, they have assessed the impacts to the resources along the routes and they have not found any significant impacts. Ready for your approval. But cindy your organization api since the late 90s has been building front groups, fostering denial, sewin sew g seeds of denial. Saying were going odig up all the oil in the tar sands. There is no way we can hit the 2 benchmark that the United States and other nations have agreed to. Climate is not about keystone. If you want a climate debate, youre going against the wrong thing. How many sources do you want to list . This is not the right battle for it. And when you look at our increase in production and what natural gas is providing, thats a huge impact on our climate benefits and grootion greenhouss reduction. Bill look president obama has increased the coal thats being mind and the gas thats being fracked in this country. One of the true chances he has to take a stand is to say no to keystone, that will be something. Jenny you are a farmer, quickly tell us what should president obama do about the keystone project . It doesnt take a rocket scientists, to figure out this project is an environmental degradation from end to end. The pollution in tex texas whens is refined. The amount of energy that takes to extract this is a nowin for the world. I want to thank all our guests, until next time waj and i will see you online. Good evening Everyone Welcome to al Jazeera America. Im John Siegenthaler in new york. Weapons end up in the wrong hands and concern grows for ref yorefugees. 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