Oil Supplies, Demand and the Keystone Pipeline

Stocks at Adequate Levels  

Refinery Capacity at All Time Highs

With US Supplies at comfortable levels, plenty of refinery capacity, increasing domestic production
and constrained domestic demand one would think that high prices wouldn't be an issue                  

Increasing US Production

Falling Demand

BUT this is where prices are.

Gasoline is 25% below Record High and 375% Above Dec '08 Low

It doesn't make much sense does it??? Until you look at the following chart.  Who thinks of the United States as an energy exporter, right?

Rapidly Expanding US EXPORTS

So we really don't need to rush through the Keystone pipeline. It is just another subsidy for the petroleum industry. Of course they tout all of the jobs that would be created with the project, but realistically they would be temporary blue collar jobs. Sure it is a shovel ready project but so are all the infrastructure repairs that President Obama has proposed. The oil companies are doing just fine, but our schools and bridges are in sad shape.   

UPDATE

I should have done more research into who would benefit from the Keystone Pipeline. This link 

answers a lot of questions about who would benefit from this project and why the GOP is fighting so hard for its completion.