You may have read that President Obama delayed the Keystone XL pipeline decision pending the search for a new route. That’s not quite accurate.
Reuters reports
The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday it will explore a new route for a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline, delaying a final approval beyond the 2012 U.S. election, sources briefed on the matter said.
The decision would be a victory for environmentalists, many of whom oppose the pipeline, and a setback for TransCanada Corp, whose $7 billion Keystone XL project is seen as the most important North American oil pipeline plan for decades.
One source familiar with the matter said that studying a new route for the pipeline would likely take 12-18 months, putting a final decision after President Barack Obama’s bid for re-election on November 6, 2012.
The President said, according to Politco:
I support the State Department’s announcement today regarding the need to seek additional information about the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. Because this permit decision could affect the health and safety of the American people as well as the environment, and because a number of concerns have been raised through a public process, we should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood. … At the same time, my administration will build on the unprecedented progress we’ve made towards strengthening our nation’s energy security, from responsibly expanding domestic oil and gas production to nearly doubling the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks, to continued progress in the development of a clean energy economy.
The President has merely delayed killing the pipeline until after the election — thereby stringing the pro-pipeline unions along as he’ll need their support to be re-elected. Then he’ll kill Keystone XL for good.
We’d say the enviros won again, but then this result was never in doubt. All the enviro protests were an act to make it appear that public opinion opposed Keystone XL. Obama hates fossil fuels. Get it?
anybody else here got a bad case of obamaroids?
Otter, so what. the enviros are our enemies. they want to destroy us and our way of life. The sooner everyone realizes this, the better.
If oh!bummer! fails to win the 2012 election and a Republican gets in, watch them charge the Republican president with destroying the environment by allowing the pipeline to go ahead.
Hussein Obama says: “Jobs? Jobs? We don’t need no stinking Jobs”
Brilliant move on Obama’s part. He can say he did not kill the pipeline which would create 10,000 jobs because he is studying it. The route would have been studied thoroughly before the route was chosen. He will kill it after the election in 2012. If he wins, it is permanently killed; if he losses, the next president can try to restore it.
China may build a pipeline to the Pacific and solve the problem for Alberta oil—it goes to China
I guess what I do not understand is why is this an executive branch only decision? Where does it say that in the constitution? Oh yea thats right, we do not need to follow that old out of date document.