Two oil spills in the last week have fueled the ongoing debate about whether or not the United States should allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline—but they’ve done little to clarify issues surrounding it. The two spills—one resulting from a train derailment and the other caused by a leaking pipeline—have people on both sides of the issue saying, “I told you so.”

The first spill loosed about 15,000 gallons of fuel after a train derailed March 27 near Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, according to Reuters. Supporters of Keystone XL—a 1,700-mile pipeline stretching from Canada to the Gulf—held the incident up as proof of the need to build the 800,000 barrel-a-day pipeline.

“The train wreck illustrates one economic reality of the U.S. shale drilling boom, which is that energy companies have turned to shipping by rail as pipeline capacity has been filled,” writes an unnamed author in a Wall Street Journal editorial. “Rail is not the safest way to transport oil, however…. By contrast, oil pipelines carry far more crude and have fewer leaks per mile.”

A burst pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas, though—just days after the derailment—seemed to give pipeline opposition arguments a leg up. Twenty-two houses were evacuated Friday after a “gash” in a 60-year-old pipeline filled yards and gutters with about 12,000 barrels of tar sands crude, according to a CNN report.

“This latest pipeline incident is a troubling reminder that oil companies still have not proven that they can safely transport Canadian tar sands oil across the United States without creating risks to our citizens and our environment,” Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) of the House Natural Resources Committee told the Washington Post.

The Arkansas crude is the same type that will be transported by the Keystone XL and is thought by some to be more corrosive than lighter grades of crude. The type of fuel spilled in Minnesota has not been confirmed.

While clean up in both spills continues and the damages are thought to be limited, both may make an even bigger mess of the continuing disputes over building the mega pipeline—a struggle that’s slated to heat up again in a couple of weeks when the State Department holds a public meeting on the draft environmental statement of the latest pipeline plan.

Although, it’s likely at least some in the fray will point to the recent spills, the bigger issues with a Keystone approval or denial are more far-reaching than the possibility for transport problems (this nifty primer by the Washington Post touches on the latest politics). They include matters of environment, climate change, international relations, job creation, and energy security—just to name a few.

“This project represents a collision of multiple national interests and multiple political interests,” P.J. Crowley, who served as spokesman for the State Department during part of the review process, told the Post in October. “Energy security and the environment normally go together, but in this case they are somewhat at odds. All have come together to make this a bigger deal than it might have appeared at first blush.”