"Texas needs the Keystone pipeline"

This commentary promotes the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that is currently under review by the State Department.  If approved, the pipeline would extend from the Athabasca Oil Sands of Canada, crossing the Ogallala Aquifer along the western plains and down to a coastal refinery located outside of Houston, TX.

Barry Smitherman is a member of the Texas Railroad Commission and represents the interests of the oil and gas industries.  Being a member of a this particular type of state agency has prevented him from taking into consideration certain environmental affects and America's interest in reducing its oil dependency.  His strong commitment, support, and unsourced data in regards to jobs and state revenue earned from this pipeline reeks of interest groups and greed.

Smitherman believes that given the state of the nation, it's best to compromise our natural resources (Ogallala Aquifer- One of the world's largest aquifers, it covers an area of approximately 174,000 mi²) and pump crude oil over thousands of miles of America's heartland in order to create more jobs and tax revenue within the states it contaminates.  I believe this commissioner's fallacious reasoning of two wrongs make a right is a joke.  Granted, our country is in a financial crunch, but why give up our national goals of reducing our oil dependency and our search for a cleaner energy source?  Our economy will bounce back without the help of this pipeline.  If this pipeline is approved, we will have only strengthened the oil industries grip throughout the nation and committed ourselves to even more foreign oil...