No more excuses for delaying Keystone

Published 11:42 pm Tuesday, April 8, 2014

President Obama is — yet again — pivoting to

jobs, since he’s now declared victory on the

Affordable Care Act. But like his “mission

accomplished” moment for Obamacare, his

pivot is style, not substance.

If Obama really wanted to promote jobs in the

United States — good-paying jobs — he would immediately

approve construction of the Keystone XL

pipeline.

“It has been an eye-opening experience to watch

liberals block an infrastructure project — the Keystone

XL pipeline — that two of three Americans

(and even a plurality of Democrats) support,” says

Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation. “Pew

had an amazing poll last month reporting that just

about every demographic group in America supports

the Keystone pipeline, except for Democrats with

Ph.D.s and Democrats who earn more than

$100,000.”

That’s a shame, because pipeline construction

could create lots of jobs.

“We need to build in America a national network

of pipelines from coast to coast, much as Eisenhower

built the interstate highway system,” Moore

says. “Unlike the highways, the private sector will

gladly build the pipelines; they just need the permits.

And Uncle Sam won’t give them out. We are talking

about a lot of jobs here — and really high-paying,

often union, jobs. Welders and pipe fitters and construction

workers and truckers earn $70,000 or more

— well above the median salary in America.”

Obama’s own former Interior Secretary now supports

the Keystone XL pipeline.

“At the end of the day, we are going to be consuming

that oil,” said Ken Salazar, who served under

Obama from 2009-2013. “So is it better for us to get

the oil from our good neighbor from the north, or to

be bringing it from some place in the Middle East?”

He said at an energy conference in Houston in

February that the pipeline would be a win-win

proposition, pointing out that there’s not “a single

case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental

problem for anyone.”

That came just weeks after Obama’s own State

Department released a report on the pipeline, showing

it wouldn’t affect greenhouse gas emissions. In

other words, not building the pipeline wouldn’t

mean that oil wouldn’t be extracted from Canada’s

oil sands.

“The updated market analysis … concludes that

the proposed project is unlikely to significantly affect

the rate of extraction in oil sands areas,” the report

said.

That would seem to answer the last remaining

question Obama said he had about the pipeline. He

said he wouldn’t approve its construction if scientists

determined it would “significantly exacerbates

the problem of carbon pollution.”

It won’t, so does that mean Obama will allow its

construction?

Don’t bet on it.

The Hill newspaper weighed in on the matter on

Monday.

“Like a blockbuster movie that never quite arrives,

President Obama’s decision on the Keystone

XL oil pipeline has been ‘coming soon’ for years,”

The Hill reported. “He has been weighing whether

the project should be built since he first entered the

Oval Office, and rationalizations for further delay are

thin on the ground.”

So for now, Obama’s talk about jobs is just that —

talk.