According to Donald Trump and other Republicans, the Keystone XL pipeline is absolutely necessary if the United States plans to become energy independent. But a Nebraska farmer completely wrecked that argument in an interview with Fox News.

Art Tanderup is a farmer who lives outside of Neligh, Nebraska, and would be directly affected by the pipeline. He calmly told Fox host Sandra Smith that the Keystone XL would only travel through America, allowing Canadian Tar Sands to be exported from North America, most likely to countries such as China:

“It’s going across America to be refined and exported, which is not for America’s use. If they do not mix some high-quality crude with this, the best they get is poor-grade diesel fuel, which we can’t even burn in this country.”

Smith asked:

“Let me ask you, what’s the solution? Because we all want to achieve energy independence in this country. This was an effort and a step in that direction. How do you achieve that?”

Tanderup took the wind right out of Smith–and millions of Keystone proponents–by responding with simple facts:

“Our premium goal would be to leave the tar sands in the ground and move more rapidly to renewable fuels. After we learned how destructive the chemicals and the tar sands are, we have come to realize that this type of fossil fuel should not be happening. It doesn’t matter where it’s at ― we need to look for other sources of renewable energy. We would fight it wherever it was.”

The Nebraska farmer then ended the debate with one line:

“This is not American oil, and it is going across America.”

So Keystone should be built so we can enrich the Canadian company that owns the tar sands and guarantee that the Chinese will have plenty of oil in the future as they seek to overtake us the largest economy in the world? That’s the very definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Here’s the segment from Fox News:

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org