Americans have lived through all of this debate before. The Keystone XL debate is almost an exact replay of a similar policy clash during the early 1970s over whether to build a similar multibillion-dollar project: the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The Alaska project was eventually approved by Congress in 1973 and completed in 1978, but only after fierce debate.

Today, the Alaska Pipeline is recognized almost universally as a technological marvel, an energy policy success story that reduced American reliance on Middle Eastern oil, and one of the most economically successful infrastructure projects in American history. 

Sounding much like the global warming alarmists of today, David Bower, president of Friends of the Earth, claimed in 1970:

The annual cost that will accrue to people unborn, and the threat to endangered species, are price tags we cannot fail to consider if we are to be responsible human beings!

Sound familiar?