Jim Hightower

The corporatists in Congress barked at Obama that he must approve that Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Because the Exxons and Chevrons need a way to get all that Canadian tar sands oil to their Texas refineries. That'll increase the supply of gasoline and lower the price at the pump. It's Economics 101, Bucko.

Really? Well, consider this complicating fact: rather than shipping an abundance of gasoline to our gas stations, Big Oil has quietly been siphoning oceans of fuel from their U.S. refineries and shipping it to Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Last year, for the first time ever, fuel became the top export of the United States – the big refineries shipped 117 million gallons of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel per day out of our country. Suddenly, fuel exports are bigger in dollar value than the foreign sales of American aircraft, agriculture, or any other product.

Commuters, truckers, farmers, airlines, and others who're dependent on those fuels have been soaked in the past year by gasoline pump prices that have averaged $3.52 a gallon – a record high. This price shock has given Big Oil's political puppets an excuse to yap ceaselessly about the urgent need to "build that pipeline." The environment be damned, is their cry, full speed ahead to increase supply.

These ranters don't mention (shhhh) the giant refiners' control and manipulation of our gasoline supply for their own fun and profit. While the refiners refuse to reveal how much they profit from exporting fuel, the more they send overseas, the less there is at home, allowing them to jack up our prices. No surprise then that the Big Five gasoline makers enjoyed record profits in 2011.

Rather than ripping apart our environment to serve these finaglers, America urgently needs a full conversion to alternative fuels.