“The White House said Tuesday that the bill “seeks to circumvent longstanding and proven processes” by removing a requirement for a presidential permit. The legislation also says no new environmental studies are needed.”
“The White House said Tuesday that the bill “seeks to circumvent longstanding and proven processes” by removing a requirement for a presidential permit. The legislation also says no new environmental studies are needed.”
Sounds like a reasonable approach. At least it goes through a legislative process which is more than many of the EOs Obama has signed.
Generally speaking, any president is going to favor more power to the executive and will oppose efforts to remove power the executive has. That’s a really good reason for limiting all government power.
At the same time, Congress should be ready to set direction when necessary. But the current Senate is almost certainly going to kill this legislation and leave the decision to the president, since he’s in their party. I’d expect Republicans to act much the same way.
Poor Barack Millhouse Obama has to be scratching his head, “I thought I already said, ‘No,’ to Keystone !?!?”
In a different day and age (when Congress wasn’t afraid to “man up” and override a presidential veto in the best interests of America), the precedent was set:
“Many in Congress are fed up with the destructive delays and are now considering ‘The Northern Route Approval Act,’ which would expedite approval of the final phase of pipeline construction, by declaring that no Presidential Permit is required . . . Similar bureaucratic actions and seemingly endless environmental lawsuits against the Trans-Alaska Pipeline finally convinced Congress to pass legislation putting an end to those delays.” ~Duggan Flanakin and Craig Rucker, “Keystone obfuscation must end now!”
http://www.cfact.org/2013/05/21/keystone-obfuscation-must-end-now
I suspect Obama is going to try to slow-walk a decision on this issue until after the 2014 midterm elections.
“Proven” – In what way? The process only enpowerers activists and causes excessive litigation.
O that’s right; Obama is a trained lawyer extortionist.