Killing Keystone

After months of playing political ping-pong with 20,000 potential (mostly union) jobs, the Obama administration has decided to kill the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

The decision was taken under cover of the State Department which, according to U.S. president Barack Obama, recommended that the presidential permit be denied. Obama said the State Department advised him that the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline does not serve the national interest, an argument predicated on the contention there was not enough time for the Department to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project is in the national interest.

Yet for more than three years, the State Department has been conducting a “transparent, thorough, and rigorous review,” which it now deems as insufficient.

How can this be, quizzed Christopher Helman of Forbes’ Magazine? “In the process of selecting the proposed route, TransCanada plotted and studied 14 different pipeline paths and submitted 10,000 pages of environmental studies. They’ve already studied this thing to death.”

Equally obvious is that Obama’s decision does not serve the national interest. Nor does it serve that of his nation’s closest ally and trading partner – Canada. Since China will be the likely recipient of the Canadian oil, in addition to the destruction of possible jobs, Obama’s decision actually harms — not helps — the nation’s interests and those of the entire continent.

Nor has Obama’s decision, calculated to placate his radical environmental voting base, played well with unions on both sides of the border, as evidenced by Laborers’ (LIUNA) union president, Terry O’Sullivan’s blistering criticism: “The score is Job-Killers, two; American workers, zero. We are completely and totally disappointed. This is politics at its worst. Once again the President has sided with environmentalists instead of blue collar construction workers – even though environmental concerns were more than adequately addressed. Blue-collar workers across the U.S. will not forget this.” Neither will engineers, steel companies, road builders and myriad others.

Workers across North America have long understood that this project would create thousands of jobs at a time when unemployment in the U.S. construction industry alone is 16 percent with 1.3 million men and women out of work.

They also understand that environmental groups have used the Keystone XL as a disingenuous proxy for arguments about global warming. The pipeline would carry up to 900,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada’s oilsands to the U.S., reducing reliance on oil from hostile nations.

Environmental groups have also been blind to the unintended consequences of the anti-Keystone decision which will cost American citizens billions in lost wages, tax revenues, GDP growth and higher oil prices.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government and Trans-Canada, the company developing the project, have made it crystal clear that the oil will be developed – and possibly sold to China – regardless of whether Keystone XL is built.

“The Administration and environmentalists have blown the whistle on workers trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads,” said O’Sullivan. “Instead of celebrating their victory by hugging a tree they should hug a jobless construction worker because they’re the ones who are going to need it.”

The Washington Post’s Robert Samuelson agreed: “Rejecting the Keystone pipeline is an act of insanity. Obama’s hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune, says ‘Obama made a decision that will deny the U.S. a reliable source of oil. Note that Canada has never threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz. Obama made a decision that will cost the U.S. good jobs. He seems to think those jobs will still be there when he gets around to making a decision on the pipeline. But they may well be gone for good.”

Back in Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper also let it be known that Canada would not straightjacket itself financially with ideology and would seek other markets as time runs out for Obama and his radical environmental cronies who are playing a longer hand. Their goal is ever greater political power for the Green lobby which knows that if they allow Canadian oilsands oil to be developed via the Keystone pipeline, the U.S. will similarly start to develop their own oilsands and shale oil.

The U.S. contains well over 600 years of known reserves and that would allow the U.S. to be a net exporter of oil.

If that happens, the green economy ruse that the left has sponsored, already reeling from bankruptcies and cronyism, would collapse. It would show that there is no shortage of oil and that “green” energy can not compete with fossil fuels.