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Gas prices fact check: Six ideas in Congress, but can they work?

Soaring gas prices have also shown a consistent and significant ability to push members of Congress over the deep end. Here's the experts' take on 6 ideas floating through Congress.

5. Approve the Keystone pipeline

J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio (c.) holds a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington earleir this year to discuss President Obama's decision to halt the Keystone XL pipeline.

  • By David Grant Staff writer

Republicans have also hammered Mr. Obama for blocking the implementation of the Keystone XL pipeline, a roughly 1,600-mile system from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. 

“The president simply can’t claim to have a comprehensive approach to energy, because he doesn’t,” said Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky during a floor speech Wednesday. “And any time he says he does, the American people should remember one word: Keystone.”

While the Keystone pipeline may have much to commend it in terms of creating jobs – Republicans and many supportive Democrats tout numbers north of 100,000 – the company building the pipeline, TransCanada, believes the pipeline will be operational only in 2015. In other words, the Keystone pipeline wouldn't make a dime’s worth of difference at the pump this summer, Kloza said.

In fact, Kloza says, the Keystone pipeline could lead to higher gas prices in the Rocky Mountain region, where prices are currently below the national average. That’s because the area has a comparatively large amount of oil with little good way to get it to global markets. As such, it often sells at a discount.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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