I'm not sure why anyone ever cites the EPA to prove a point. Their word means almost nothing. That being said, I'm assuming an underground pipeline would be a lot easier to monitor and repair than a well that's three miles below the ocean surface.
I don't understand why people focus so much on this stuff though. We're talking mostly temporary jobs here. Temporary is better than nothing, but it's still temporary. We're talking 700,000 barrels per day. That's about 1/30th of what the U.S. uses per day. How much cheaper is it to make this pipeline than to import the oil from one of the usual countries? How much does it actually matter if we do this? Is it because it's lots cheaper, or because we want to buy 700,000 less barrels from <insert name of middle eastern country here>? (I'm actually asking. I don't know the cost comparison). But I think people spend way too much time thinking of how we can get oil faster and cheaper and keep our daily lives exactly the same, and too little time thinking of how we could just consume less oil in the first place. I mean, the chick at the grocery store I go to double bags my toilet paper before I can stop her. (On a completely unrelated note, I really want to know why. Does she think I'll be embarrassed that someone might find out that I go to the bathroom on occasion, and thus want to hide my purchase?)