The United States: Canada’s Energy Colony
By One big reason for the Keystone XL Pipeline coming through the United States is that Canadians outside of Texas Alberta don’t want it themselves. That is especially true in the most logical place for such a pipeline to end: British Columbia.
Since Keystone is almost certain to be approved by the Obama Administration, the U.S. will serve just fine as the place that serves Canada’s energy industry. The irony of course is that the United States has been at the forefront of oil imperialism for nearly a century, in the Arabian Peninsula, Venezuela, Nigeria, and around the globe.* There’s a certain poetry to the United States now taking over the role of the colonized, although that won’t make anyone in Cancer Alley or south Texas feel better.
* If you’ve never read Abduelrahman Munif’s Cities of Salt, that is probably the one great piece of literature on the effects of oil imperialism. The thing I hate most about my life right now is that I am not reading fiction anymore because of this blog and the 2 books I am writing.