New Report: Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will increase U.S. gas prices | Anthony Swift's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

New Report: Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will increase U.S. gas prices | Anthony Swift's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC
 

One of the most misunderstood issues surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is its impact on U.S. gasoline prices. NRDC, Oil Change International and ForestEthics Advocacy released a report, Keystone XL: A Tar Sands PIpeline to Increase Oil Prices, today that take a close look at this complicated issue and evaluates Keystone XL’s impact on U.S. gasoline prices and supply. The study finds that Keystone XL is likely to both reduce the amount of gasoline produced in U.S. refineries for domestic markets and increase the cost of producing it, leading to even higher prices at the pump. Keystone XL’s supporters in the United States cite high gasoline prices as a reason to overlook the project’s tremendous environmental impacts and build the project. There are plenty of compelling reasons not to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline – it will expand a destructive extraction process, put our rivers, aquifers and lands at risk of tar sands oil spills, and would increase our dependence on tar sands – worsening climate change and undermining efforts to move to clean energy. In addition to this litany of problems, rather than decreasing U.S. oil and gasoline prices, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will lead to even more pain at the pump for American consumers.
So how does a pipeline increase gasoline prices?