CNN news 2014-11-24 加文本

cnn news 2014-11-24

CARL AZUZ, cnn ANCHOR: I`m Carl Azuz. And welcome to cnn STUDENT NEWS. First up this Thursday, November 20th.

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO: This is an historic event, I believe when all is set and done, this snowfall may break also - it`s a record, and that`s saying

something in western New York and in Buffalo.

AZUZ: That`s because average snowfall in Buffalo, New York is about 94 inches per year. The city`s gotten 72 inches since Tuesday, and has caused

emergencies. At least six deaths in region have been blamed on this winter storm. It`s monstrous. People were trapped in cars, firehouses were

turned into shelters. Residents aren`t even allowed to drive in south Buffalo where rescuers are using 18 snowmobiles to answer emergency calls.

Buffalo is located on Lake Erie. It often sees lake effect snow when cold air passes over warmer water, picks up moisture from the lake and dumps

snow on Erie`s east or south of the lake.

Buffalo is not the only shivering city. Every U.S. state saw freezing temperatures this week and arctic air brought snow to half of them.

There`s a pipeline network that moves tons of crude oil from Canada to the U.S.

It`s called the Keystone pipeline system. It stretches about 3800 miles in all, and there`s one piece of the project that hasn`t been completed. It`s

called the Keystone XL pipeline, and a company named TransCanada needs U.S. approval to finish it.

That approval has been stalled in the U.S. government. It passed last week in the Republican controlled House of Representatives, but it failed this

week by one vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate. It`s likely to come up again next year when the new Congress starts.

Polls have indicated most Americans support the pipeline, but what`s blocking its completion?

TOM FOREMAN, cnn CORRESPONDENT: The Keystone XL pipeline extension would stretch about 1200 miles, most of it in the United States, from Alberta,

Canada down to Nebraska. There are lots of pipelines out there, some of which would connect with this, so why all the fuss about this extension?

First of all, the environment. Opponents say that they fear that this will spoil the landscape. If there`s a spill that can contaminate ground water,

hurt humans and animals, and they say this is dirty oil, a type of oil that when it`s burned produced more greenhouse gases.

Supporters say the company that wants this, TransCanada has already promised much more robust safety measures that rail shipments are rising

already to bring this oil in, and the rail shipments are riskier than the pipeline would be.

Second issue, jobs. Supporters like to cite a study that says somewhere around 42,000 jobs or more would benefit from this pipeline. That includes

not only people who work on it, but people in restaurants and hotels, and supply houses, but opponents say that`s all temporary, that`s for one or

two years while this thing is built. In the end, maybe only 50 permanent jobs coming out of this.

So, that raises the real question: why would you want to build this thing at all? It`s only 36 inches across, doesn`t really make a difference.

Supporters say yes, it does. It means about 830,000 barrels of oil a day coming into the United States from a secure ally reducing our dependence on

overseas oil from places like Venezuela or the Middle East.

Whereas opponents say look, it is just not worth it. For all those various reasons they`ve already cited, even as supporters continue to say look,

it`s time after all this debate to dig the trenches and to get this pipe into the ground.