Lore - "By stopping KXL environmentalists are attempting to make it harder to process and transport it off the continent." You do understand that not building the KXL pipeline has not stopped a single bbl of oil sands production from being exported overseas, don't you? As you point out that production is already being exported to the US. And much of that to the Texas coast where it is LEGAL under federal law to export it anywhere in the world. Even the much talked about "ban" on exporting US oil doesn't apply because even that often ignored the law specifically exempts oil originally produced in another country.
But does it really matter if any of the oil sands production is exported from Texas? About 3 million bbls of it comes into the US daily. And every day the US exports refinery products made from about 3 million of oil every day. Does it really matter if the oil sands production is refined in the US or China...it's still getting refined. Does it really matter if much of it is getting refined in Texas if much of those products are exported overseas? The world is already benefitting from the production of the oil sands whether it is receiving it directly, receiving the refined products made from it or receiving refinery products made from US oil which is being substituted by oil sands production for domestic consumption.
As I said above if environmentalists want to delude themselves into thinking something great has happened by the NORTHERN LEG of KXL not being built that's OK: they really have little to cheer about when it comes to the fossil fuel industry in the US or anywhere else in the world. BTW I emphasized the NORTHERN portion of KXL because the SOUTHERN portion of the line was completed long ago and has been helping deliver hundreds of millions of bbls of oil sands production to the Gulf Coast. Just as the other Keystone Pipeline (600,000 bopd capacity) has been moving production across the border since 2011 during the term of the "greenest" POTUS in US history. The same POTUS who stood in the construction yard of the southern leg of KXL and publicly stated that the completion of it was vital to American interests. The same POTUS who feels exporting coal is also vital to the interest of the country and has increased levels of those exports from western govt lands to record levels. And to facilitate even more exports in the future has ordered his agencies to fast tract the permit approvals to expand coal export terminals on the Texas coast.
So please don't pass this message on to any greenies. They need all the success that they can pretend has actually happened.