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Fortunately, there is a project that will create jobs, provide direct investment in our economy, and move us closer to our longstanding goal of becoming energy independent: the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Keystone Pipeline is one common-sense step in the right direction to help put more people back to work, reduce prices at the pump, and position our nation for greater energy security now and in the future.

As much as we need to approve the Keystone pipeline, we need to think far broader than that.

I would support immediate construction of the Keystone Pipeline.

Not since the days of George W. Bush's 'Clear Skies' and 'Healthy Forests' initiatives has America been presented with a project as cravenly corporate and backward-looking as the Keystone XL pipeline.

The irony of environmental opposition to the Keystone XL project is that stopping the pipeline to the U.S. will not stop production in the oil sands of Canada. Instead of coming to the United States, the oil will still be produced and shipped by rail or a pipeline similar to the Keystone XL to Canada's Pacific Coast.

The environmental movement's focus on the Keystone XL pipeline issue really used to baffle me.

I want to emphasize that I am not opposed to pipelines. We already have hundreds of them in our state. I am opposed to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline route because it is directly over the Ogallala Aquifer.

The oil industry fought hard to keep Keystone alive, making wildly exaggerated claims that the pipeline - the country's largest infrastructure project - would create tens of thousands of jobs and decrease America's reliance on oil from the Middle East.