What Harry Reid is not telling the public is that the United States remains a net importer of crude oil and petroleum products. Total imports of crude oil and petroleum products in 2011 were 4 times more than the petroleum products that were exported. In fact, the United States spent more than $433 billion on crude oil and petroleum imports in 2011, over $100 billion more than the $333 billion spent in 2010 and over 4 times the value of the petroleum we exported. Nevertheless, Senator Harry Reid suggests the purpose of importing Canadian oil via the proposed Keystone Pipeline is to export it in the form of petroleum products.
Yes, we import far too much crude oil, about 9 MMBPD. But that is upstream of our refineries.
We need more access to federal land and waters. We need permits issued timely and more sensible regulations.
And even if the goal was taking in raw bitumen to create jobs and better trade balance exporting products, would that be bad? It would also leave us in the better position of maintaining surplus refining capacity for when our economy finally turns around and our own demand grows.