Obama 'tactic of delay and deferral' pissing off Keystone conservatives

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from Roll Call:


Senators Scold Obama on Keystone Pipeline

Sens. John Hoeven, R-N.D., John Thune, R-S.D., Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., said in a joint statement that further delay would be unjustified and would prevent jobs from being created in their states.

“This marks the fourth delay of the Keystone XL project since 2011, when the State Department issued its final EIS finding no significant environmental impact and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed me that the agency expected to make a decision by December of that year,” Hoeven said in a statement. “This tactic of delay and deferral must stop. It is depriving America of jobs, hurting the American economy and hurting the American people.”

Landrieu, who is up for re-election in 2014 in a red state, also had strong words for the president.

“Time is up for President Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline,” Landrieu said. “This project will ensure we are able to replace oil imports from Venezuela and the Middle East with imports from our longtime ally Canada. It will create 43,000 much-needed jobs, and it will support fabrication and construction industries along the Gulf Coast and throughout the Midwest. Continuing to delay the pipeline will only drive Canadian production to be exported to China and Korea. We cannot miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow our economy, secure our energy independence and reduce our oil imports from countries that do not share our values.”


http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/bipartisan-group-of-senators-scold-obama-on-keystone-pipeline/

[Whisp]

1. here's crossing my fingers

that the President tells the Keystone people to go fuck themselves and vetoes.

I know there is enormous pressure on him from the 'business' community (half of which are Clinton friends) and I may not get my wish.

I do like the squirming and mewling from the pro-Keys tho.

[MFM008]

3. exactly

[Scurrilous]

2. Corporatist sell-out kick.

[AverageJoe90]

4. As much as I'd like to wean us off of Mideast oil, KXL seems to pose more risks than offer benefits.

Now, granted, the global warming potential has definitely been overblown by some people, for whatever reason, as even the most pessimistic reliable estimates say that even if we burned all of what's currently available, it'd only contribute maybe .4-.5*C at the very most.....but even then, it's still too much and there's no guarantees that all, most, or even a majority of the profits would remain in American hands, instead of going to China.....and then there's the ground-level environmental issues, especially oil spills; if there's one thing that *will* have a very good chance of ruining farmland, it'd be a massive oil spill, and perhaps to a degree that even 6 or 7 degrees of warming *couldn't* reach(not that I'd like to test that hypothesis, thank you!)

TBH, I think Obama's likely going to stick with the compromise plan; yes, we'll still be using fossil fuels for a while, but that will be decreasing over the years while they are gradually replaced by renewables, like solar, biofuels(biochar, hemp), etc.(in fact, this has already been happening for a little while, and I fully expect this to accelerate as time goes on.)