“The president might think that he’s killed the Keystone XL pipeline, at least for as long as he’s in office. But he could be very wrong.”
Investor’s Business Daily editorializes:
President Obama was able to snuff out the project and with it a vast supply of needed crude because the executive office has traditionally handled permits on cross-border facilities, which the pipeline is considered since it would originate in Canada.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the only way for the pipeline to be approved. Attorneys at the Congressional Research Service have determined that lawmakers can pass a bill requiring a permit for the pipeline — which would have carried crude that will now instead be shipped by a rail line owned by Warren Buffett, one of Obama’s supporters.
Their review “suggests that legislation related to cross-border facility permitting is unlikely to raise significant constitutional questions, despite the fact that such permits have traditionally been handled by the executive branch alone pursuant to its constitutional ‘foreign affairs’ authority.”
The Keystone pipeline does not involve a treaty. If it did, it would still require approval by two-thirds of the senate. Article 2, section 2, US Constitution, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article02/
This rules out a right of unilateral executive power to block the pipeline. Thus, the door is open for the US legislature to approve the pipeline.
Pipelines are the most energy-efficient and the safest (in terms of human lives, property, and environmental impact) way to transport bulk crude petroleum products. As of 2006 the US had 244,620 km of pipelines transporting petroleum products and 548,665 km for natural gas. The 3,456 km Keystone pipeline would be the safest of all based on accumulated expertise.
If there is a rational reason to stop the pipeline, the same reason should be applied to shutting down the other pipelines, which would bring the WORLD economy to a screeching halt.