Keystone: The Next Round

A new Media Matters analysis shows that media coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline has been imbalanced and misleading. As KXL proponents in Congress try to force the pipeline's construction in spite of the President's decision, here's how to stay on offense.

CORE MESSAGE

With Keystone, Big Oil gets the profits, foreign countries get the oil, and Americans get all the risks.

Connect: If we're going to risk building a pipeline through America, it better benefit Americans.

Define: With Keystone, Big Oil gets the profits, foreign countries get the oil, and we get all the risks.

Illustrate: A pipeline built through America to sell foreign oil to foreign countries risks disaster for American farmers and ranchers -- just so Big Oil can make billions.

Discredit: Keystone is about protecting the profits of Big Oil campaign donors and hurting the President politically -- not about America's best interests. We'd get all the risks and not even get the oil.

Bottom line: We should never mistake the interests of Big Oil for the interests of the American people or our economy.

Tweet: Here's how #KXL plays out: foreign countries get the oil, #BigOil gets the cash, American ranchers, farmers & families get the risks

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

"Keystone could create 20,000 jobs."

Of course that's what Big Oil claims, but the only independent study of Keystone found that those industry numbers are wildly exaggerated.
Actually, the pipeline could kill more jobs than it creates. It would raise gas prices in the Midwest, laying off thousands in trucking and tourism. And a rupture in Keystone would devastate farms and ranches along the pipeline, just like the BP Oil spill devastated Gulf fishermen.
Keystone's sponsor could now face an SEC investigation into whether it broke federal law by deceiving shareholders with inflated job number estimates.
Letting a foreign company transfer foreign oil across America just so it can be sold to foreign countries is not a jobs plan. But it's a great plan for Big Oil to make billions.

"Keystone will allow us to get more oil from Canada and less from the Middle East."

If the oil is in Canada, why send it all the way across America to the Texas coast? Because the oil can then be shipped overseas from the Texas ports. TransCanada refuses to even promise that the oil will be used in the U.S.
We are not going to get the oil. The Canadian oil that would be carried on Keystone is not destined for America -- it's destined to be shipped overseas.
Expert analyses show the Keystone XL pipeline will do nothing to reduce U.S. dependence on oil from foreign countries, including those in the Middle East.

"If this pipeline isn't built, China will get our oil."

Canada is determined to sell its oil off to China with or without Keystone. This pipeline won't stop China from getting Canada's oil or guarantee any for America.
So what's the point of putting thousands of American jobs and our nation's biggest water aquifer at risk for it anyway?

"Trust us, Keystone XL will be safe."

What else are Big Oil's marketers going to say about their projects? Actual experience tells us that the pipelines coming out of TransCanada are prone to safety failures and spills -- including one last summer that flooded North Dakota with 20,000 gallons of toxic oil.
Keystone XL will carry toxic, pipe-corroding oil across six states in America's heartland and directly through one of our most important sources of fresh water.
If we learned anything from the Exxon and BP disasters, it's that spills are catastrophically costly. A spill would devastate farmers and ranchers along the Keystone route -- and could leave their kids and grandkids with contaminated drinking water for decades.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

The Keystone XL project is sponsored by a foreign corporation that wants to build a 1,700 mile pipeline cutting across America to move Canadian oil to Gulf Coast ports, where it will be processed and sold to foreign countries.
The Republican leadership in Congress who are pushing Keystone are Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate's biggest recipient of oil and gas money this election cycle, and Speaker John Boehner, the Republican leader of the House, who has hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in companies that would benefit from the pipeline's swift approval.
The only independent study not funded by Big Oil found that the Keystone pipeline would create as few as 50 new permanent and at most 4,500 temporary positions in the U.S.
The pipeline's hidden costs could kill more jobs in the long run by increasing gas prices in the region and damaging family farms, ranches, the local tourism industry, and the trucking sector.
TransCanada admitted KXL will actually increase gas and diesel prices in the region by 10 to 20 cents more per gallon, which will send billions from American consumers to foreign and multinational oil interests.
The State Department's official assessment of Keystone XL projects that the pipeline will spill more than 50 times over its lifetime. Each spill could be up to 2 million gallons or more.
From 2005 to 2010, the five biggest oil companies raked in over $500 billion in profits while laying off over 11,000 American workers.

We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.