Paul Jay of the Real News Network interviews Greg Palast, a BBC investigative reporter and author of Vultures’ Picnic.

Listen to it all, but here’s what I think is the key portion; it starts with a question that’s so obvious that nobody’s asking it: Why are we building a pipeline to ship oil to Texas? Texas has oil!

And I wanted to know why we’re taking oil from Canada across the entire United States to Texas. And, again, it’s because the Kochs want it. Now, why do they want it? The answer is, right now they’re getting their oil—the only place they can get lots of heavy crude oil—if you want heavy crude, you’ve got to get it from a heavy dude named Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela. And one thing about Chávez, who I’ve known for many years, is that he doesn’t let go of his nation’s oil on the cheap. He is a cornerstone of OPEC. And Venezuela’s been selling heavy crude at a premium to the price paid in Texas, because it costs more to get heavy oil from Venezuela than it does to get light oil down the road from Texas. But they have no choice, the Koch brothers, but paying Hugo for his gunky oil, [because the Gulf coast refineries, especially those controlled by the Koch brothers in Flint Hills, can really only handle heavy crude oil].

Now, on the other hand, the Canadians not only are selling for less than Texas oil—they’re selling, as of today—if you check out this week’s reports, about $33 a barrel less is the price of West Canada Sands (WCS) oil, as they call it, versus WTI, the West Texas Intermediate. So you’re saving about $35 a barrel—$35 a barrel—if you can get the oil from Canada as opposed to Venezuela. So they’ve got to cut off Chávez and they’ve got to bring the oil in from Canada.