Posted on 04/22/2014 5:36:56 AM PDT by thackney
Whenever businesses and bureaucrats don’t have the guts to stand behind a decision they’ve made, they release the news late on a Friday. In the case of the Obama administration’s move to delay indefinitely a decision to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline, it speaks volumes that the announcement was made not just on any Friday, but on the convergence of Good Friday and Passover.
Got to be just coincidence, right? The cover story is that another delay in the five-year Keystone saga couldn’t be avoided because of unresolved legal issues over land seizures in Nebraska. Mmm-hmmm.
In what must be in the running for the week’s biggest load of baloney, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on “Meet The Press” yesterday that “I want to make sure the right decision is arrived at and that the president makes that decision carefully and doesn’t factor politics into his decision, which I don’t think he is.”
TransCanada TRP -3.65%, the company behind the project, is naturally annoyed. CEO Russ Girling said in a statement: “We are extremely disappointed and frustrated with yet another delay,” Girling said. “We are also disappointed the United States will continue to rely on suspect and aggressive foreign leaders for the eight to nine million barrels of oil that is imported every day. A stable, secure supply of oil from Canada and from the U.S. makes better sense and I am sure a majority of Americans agree.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said Friday that the delay was “nothing short of a stunning act of political cowardice.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
NO!---A stunning act of ignorant arrogance!
vaudine
Obama’s Keystone pipeline trap
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg-keystone-democrats-20140422,0,7790783.column#axzz2zWE9LYD7
The president’s predicament is just the latest example of how climate change monomania has become a problem for environmentalists — and the country.
On Good Friday, President Obama made a bad call. The State Department announced that it would delay its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the Nebraska Supreme Court rules in a case involving the route. The administration insists the decision to punt has nothing to do with politics. Pretty much everyone else thinks otherwise.
Obama, who is rarely reluctant to act unilaterally when it benefits him politically, and who regularly brags about his red-tape cutting, is paralyzed by perhaps the only big shovel-ready jobs project he’s been presented with.
He welcomes the Keystone red tape because he’s trapped between an overwhelmingly popular initiative and an overwhelmingly powerful constituency within the Democratic Party opposed to it: obdurate rich environmentalists and the door-knocking minions they employ.
Obama’s predicament is just the latest example of how climate change monomania has become a problem for environmentalists — and the country.
The mark of a truly successful political constituency or lobby is clout in both parties. Since climate change started crowding out other concerns, the environmental movement at the national level has become little more than an adjunct of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
Conservation used to be a fairly bipartisan affair. Dubbed the “father of conservation” by the National Park Service, Republican Teddy Roosevelt did more than any other president to preserve large swaths of wilderness. Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency, expanded the Clean Air Act, signed the Marine Mammal Protection Act and proposed the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The relationship between environmentalists and Republicans soured under Ronald Reagan as he tried to pare back the excesses of the Carter and Nixon years. But the two sides truly broke up under George H.W. Bush. Actually, it was more like the GOP was dumped — unfairly.
Bush fought for renewal and expansion of the landmark Clean Air Act, but most environmental groups wouldn’t even attend the signing. He went to the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, and he signed the U.N. treaty on climate change that established the Kyoto Protocol process.
“So how many environmental groups endorsed Bush for reelection in 1992?,” asked environmental analyst Steve Hayward in a 2010 Weekly Standard essay. “In round numbers: zero.”
excerpted, more at link
might it be both?
Put yourself in the position of the Administration and the Democratic leadership crew.
November 2014 is a massive disaster for various Democratic Senators sitting today. At least six seats will absolutely flip over to the Republicans, and another three are likely. Harry Reid will not be in the leadership role come January of 2015.
Because of the failure of Obamacare, the various scandals, and ineptitude...they are fighting a massive apparatus that no one dared to dream of in 2008...the Tea Party. Every single campaign dollar is being pursued and Keystone plays a massive role in getting those funds. If some foundation offered up $200 million for them to replace Biden as VP this month....they’d seriously sit down and analyze the potential.
So put yourself into the public view of January 2015. Replacing a Supreme Court judge? It’ll be tricky and require finding someone that is fairly neutral. Budgets? Suddenly, inability to wrap up a normal yearly budget won’t be such a big deal. Scandals? The senate will find enough votes to put the President in a bad position.
It’s not cowardice. It’s survival on a sinking ship. You do what you must....to ensure the right people at least get a life-vest...even if they can’t survive in the toxic environment created by the “captain”.
I think it will cost them supporters by not making a decision.
It will also gather hope on the opposition, the side of American Jobs.
I don’t believe it will help them in the long or the short run. Other than remain a fund-raising issue, but it remains for the republicans as well.
Energy is the lifeblood of a modern society. Oil is a potent, portable for of energy
TransCanada Pipelines wants to build a system to deliver 650,000 B/D of uninterpretable energy to the US. This energy will come from America's best ally, neighbor, and trading partner. It will also move domestic oil from North Dakota and any other US location along the way that discovers oil. This will displace oil now imported from Venezuela.
There will be at least two pipelines built from Northern Alberta to the world markets. Besides Keystone, a pipeline to Kitimat will fill tankers for the world market, mainly Asia.
In return the oil producers in Canada will get bits of dull colored paper or, more likely, electronic entries in a ledger, denominated in US dollars.
If Keystone is not built soon, the pipeline to Kitimat will be. All that energy will go to fuel America's enemy, China.
And the US has to think about this for 5 years? No politics involved here.
I was listening to Mark Belling subbing for Rush yesterday, and he was saying this could be a millstone around the necks of senate dims during the elections this Nov. I hope that holds true. Mary Landrieu (d) LA is in enough trouble without having this to sink her even more.
Obama is an idiot. His base will never, ever, desert him.
Valerie Jarret’s stench is overwhelming on this one.
No real surprise. The keystone pipeline wont be built as long as obama is in office.
I am SHOCKED! Shocked I tell you
It’s not cowardice—it’s commie calculation. The cowardice is on the other side of the aisle.
Touche.
How purposefully blind does one have to be to see the one known as "obama" working for America's best interests?
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves...
Wherever he came from and whomever or what has sent him, he is the agent of our destruction.
“Harry Reid will not be in the leadership role come January of 2015.”
With any luck, Harry Reid will also be the recipient of an IRS audit as well as a criminal investigation,
What goes around, comes around.
In the mean time America is alienating it’s largest and most trusted trading partner and ally. Canada is no longer a backwoods lacky of British and American foreign and domestic policy. She has become an economic powerhouse capable of standing on her own on the world stage. Keystone is an integral part of Canadian obligation under NAFTA, a treaty Obama threatened to rip up, which obligates a right of first refusal to North American markets for vital raw materials like petroleum. An element of trust has been lost here and we will gladly sell our resources to the Chinese. Obama is pandering to the industrialists and oil magnates like Buffett and Rockefeller who are funding the anti-oilsands crusade using wacko environmental groups to carry their water.
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