On Wednesday, 18 January, the White House announced the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, ostensibly due to a lack of time allowed by the House of Representatives for a decision. The House required an up or down decision by 23 February, so this decision was more than a month early. The White House said their answer had to be “No” because the time limit would not allow the State Department (the State Department?) time to study the pipeline.
The pipeline and its pathway has been studied thoroughly for the last three years. The Canadians, our allies on so many issues, has waited patiently for approval of Keystone. Businesses approve of it. The individual states approve of it. Even the unions approve of it. Only the environmentalists stand in the way. Those who want everyone to return the world to life during the Stone Age want to stop the pipeline.
The President enjoys the support of the environmentalists and does much for them. In 2009, he stated that under his energy policy “energy costs would necessarily skyrocket.” Afterward, his onslaught began. Massive amounts of stimulus money was squandered on solar energy companies. Still, those companies couldn’t compete with Chinese products, convenient since we have to borrow 41% of all money spent from the Chinese. Those companies, like Solyndra, went belly up at taxpayer (that’s us) expense. Wind farms have gone up, operated for a while, killing eagles, then were shutdown at taxpayer (us again) expense. Government Motors, GM has invested taxpayer money perfecting its Volt automobile, only to have them catch fire. Duke Energy has even warned its users not to plug them in because of fire risk. So, Chevrolet has sold about 1800 units costing, including subsidies, about $250,000 per unit. So now GM is moving the manufacture of the Volt to China. I’m beginning to see a trend here. So much for alternative energy so far.
After the offshore oil rig blew up, the Obama administration jumped at the opportunity to impose a moratorium on all operations of shore, causing gas prices to go up. Although the moratorium has been lifted, getting permits from the administration has been next to impossible. Today, the price of gas has roughly doubled (it was $1.76 on the day Obama took office). Mishandled foreign policy in the Middle East means that price will only increase. Canada has oil in need of refining. Either we can do it or the Chinese will.
We haven’t even touched on the jobs issue. The number of immediate jobs is estimated at between 10,000 and 20,000. The total number of jobs would be around 80,000 more. With unemployment around 9% (over 11% if you use real numbers) that would provide a lot of relief. However, since the Obama administration places environmental issues above job creation, Canada will soon send those jobs to ( you guessed it) China. President Obama has been talking about jobs the last three years, we had no idea what he was talking about was jobs in China and the job Obama is most concerned about is his own! meanwhile, we’ll be buying gas from the Middle East, Brazil and Venezuela, so expect higherr prices too.
marjarhead1 