President Obama last week rejected a permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline. The proposed pipeline would have carried oil from Canadian tar sands.
On a recent visit to Rockford, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says it's time to look for alternative sources of energy.
“The Canadian tar sands were the wild, popular thing for a long period of time. They’ve gone down in popularity because the price of oil has gone down. It costs a lot of money to take those nasty tar sands and turn them into a clean product. I think the demand for tar sand through the pipeline was already diminishing. Let’s start thinking about the future.”
Critics of the President's decision say the pipeline would have been a boost to the U.S. economy and would have created jobs.