The Keystone Pipeline Falls Victim to Presidential Politics

The news out of Washington today is that the Obama administration is set to reject the Keystone Pipeline project submitted by a Canadian firm, TransCanada. The rejection will come before the February 21^st deadline set by Congress for the President to make his decision.

The Keystone Pipeline was intended to stretch from Canadian oil sands to Texas refineries.

The pipeline requires a US State Department permit because it crosses the Canada-US international border. The project proposal has been under review for more than three years. The department is required to determine whether the project is in the U.S. national interest.

It appears that the Obama administration will not prevent the submission of another proposal when an alternative route is agreed that would avoid the Nebraska Sandhills natural habitat.

The White House will also contend that it is the Republican House vote to force a decision by February 21 that has led to the rejection, because no alternative route has been proposed and could not have been in the short time permitted by Congress. However, TransCanada is supposedly set to submit a second proposal within two weeks.

The GOP House and many GOP presidential candidates have argued that President Obama’s original decision to delay the Keystone Pipeline was a political play to gain support from the environmental groups in the Democrat Party which oppose the pipeline during the 2012 presidential election. At the time it was delayed, officials predicted that the process of rerouting the pipeline and the subsequent environmental review would extend the permitting process into early 2013.

Even though a decision may be postponed until 2013, the issue itself could become a major talking point in the campaign fight between Republicans and Democrats. Environmental groups have lobbied against the project, arguing that the difficult extraction of oil sands contributes to climate change and that the pipeline itself poses leak risks. Supporters of the pipeline say it will create jobs and enhance U.S. energy security by increasing oil supplies from a friendly neighbor.

“President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese,” Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) offered. “The president won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs. This is not the end of this fight.”

GOP presidential leader Mitt Romney issued a statement before the administration’s formal announcement, accusing Obama of putting “politics ahead of sound policy,” and adding that the move illustrates why unemployment has been consistently above 8 percent.

“By declaring that the Keystone pipeline is not in the ‘national interest,’ the president demonstrates a lack of seriousness about bringing down unemployment, restoring economic growth and achieving energy independence,” Romney said. “He seems to have confused the national interest with his own interest in pleasing the environmentalists in his political base.”

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said Wednesday that, “This political decision offers hard evidence that creating jobs is not a high priority for this administration.”

However, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “Republicans put in jeopardy a process that should be immune from politics, should be conducted on basis of pragmatic analysis and hijacked it,”
adding, “The State Department warned that would create problems.”

Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said that the White House would send a strong message to voters in rejecting the pipeline, demonstrating Obama’s “enduring commitment to breaking our dependence on oil.” When it comes to this year’s election, Brune added, “We’ll see a very clear and strong set of distinctions between Obama and his competitors on this issue.”

The announcement will apparently also mention steps the administration has taken to reduce oil consumption in the United States, such as tightening fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.

Republicans and their allies are just as eager to make this an important issue in the upcoming presidential election.

Michael Whatley, executive vice president of the Consumer Energy Alliance, said his group would continue pushing for the pipeline in every possible way.

So, dear readers, it is business as usual during the 2012 presidential campaign.

The Democrats are trying to make the best of the delay of a project that would have created jobs by accusing the GOP of forcing a too-quick decision.

Meanwhile, the GOP is forced to argue that jobs created now are better for the future of the US economy than those created after the presidential election.

Perhaps, although many people are asking him to bow out of the presidential race, Texas Governor Rick Perry is right in asserting that getting started immediately on energy independence is one of the keys to a sustainable economic recovery and to the permanent reduction of the federal debt.

But, no one has ever believed that being right is the leading indicator of a long career in Washington.