THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIV, Issue # 29, February 8, 2012
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE JOBS THING THAT SURE DIDN'T LAST LONG:
Obama Rejects Keystone XL Jobs, Promotes More
Wind & Solar Subsidies -- What to Do Now?
By Paul K. Driessen
THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE & THE AMERICAN NATIONAL INTEREST: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S VETO OF TRANSCANADA'S APPLICATION FOR PERMITS TO
BUILD THE KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE -- HOW IS IT CONTRARY TO THE U.S. NATIONAL INTEREST TO CREATE 20,000 CONSTRUCTION & MANUFACTURING JOBS,
INCREASE THE U.S. GROSS DOMESTIC BY AN ESTIMATED $350 BILLION, & BRING 830,000 BARRELS OF OIL PER DAY VIA PIPELINE FROM FRIEND & NEIGHBOR
CANADA TO TEXAS REFINERIES? HOW IS PIPELINING CANADIAN OIL WORSE THAN IMPORTING OIL IN MUCH RISKIER TANKERS FROM UNSTABLE, UNFRIENDLY
PLACES LIKE VENEZUELA & THE MIDDLE EAST?
FULL STORY:
U.S. President Barack Obama “is focused like a laser on putting people back to work,” U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Democrat - Florida) assured
us last Fall – echoing repeated statements by President Obama and Obama administration officials who “can’t wait” for Congress or others to take action and create
jobs.
The jobs thing didn’t last long, however. The President soon vetoed TransCanada’s application for permits to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Approving them
“would not be in the national interest,” he declared.
It is hard for most Americans to understand how it is contrary to the national interest to create 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs, increase the U.S. Gross
Domestic Product by an estimated $350 billion, and bring 830,000 barrels of oil per day via pipeline from friend and neighbor Canada to Texas refineries. It’s hard for
us to grasp how pipelining Canadian oil is worse than importing oil in much riskier tankers from unstable, unfriendly places like Venezuela and the Middle East – or
how it’s better for the global environment to transport Canadian oil by tanker to China, where it will be burned under far less rigorous pollution laws and controls.
It’s equally hard for average citizens to comprehend how more than three years of careful environmental studies are insufficient, especially after the U.S. State
Department had issued several reports concluding that the pipeline would have only “limited adverse environmental impacts” in areas that are already dotted with
oil wells and crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines.
To suppose, as the President insisted, that Keystone would generate “a lot fewer jobs than would be created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending
unemployment insurance” is simply baffling.
In view of White House intransigence, what should Congress and TransCanada do now?
The 1,660-mile-long Keystone XL pipeline would begin in southeastern Alberta, Canada, and end in Port Arthur, Texas. Although it would incorporate the existing
Keystone Cushing pipeline through Kansas and part of Oklahoma, most of the U.S. portion (from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, and from
Cushing, Oklahoma, to Port Arthur) would be new. Keystone XL would create 20,000 jobs manufacturing and installing 36-inch pipe, valves, and other components
to build that addition.
Environmentalists predictably went ballistic. Surface mining Alberta’s oil sands damages lands and habitats, they railed. Never mind that this technique is being
replaced by in situ “steam-assisted gravity drain” processes, that mined lands are being restored to forest and grass habitats, or that blocking Keystone XL will
neither end oil extraction nor prevent crude or refined product shipments to China.
Mining, processing, and using this oil will increase greenhouse gas (GHG) levels and global warming, activists vented. Never mind that total “greenhouse gas”
emissions would amount to an almost undetectable portion of annual global GHG emissions. That “dangerous manmade global warming” is an exaggerated scare
that has little basis in truly peer-reviewed science. Or that there has been no warming for a decade, UN IPCC “science” is crumbling at its foundation, and
increasing numbers of climate experts are publicly dissenting from IPCC orthodoxy.
Mr. Obama needs environmentalists in his camp, if he expects to be reelected. Radical Greens have made Keystone XL the latest symbol of their intense hatred of
anything hydrocarbon – and a centerpiece for fundraising. Like the President, they are intent on ending our “addiction to oil” and “fundamentally transforming”
the energy, economic, and social fabric of America.
Jobs, GDP, tax revenues, and national security will therefore have to take a backseat.
As he suggested in his State of the Union speech, President Obama seems willing to generate expensive electricity for three million homes by blanketing a million
acres of public lands with taxpayer-subsidized, bird-killing wind turbines, habitat-smothering solar panels, high-voltage transmission lines, and gas-fired backup
units. Anti-Keystone “environmentalists” seem to have few objections to such “eco-friendly” energy. But for them a pipeline is intolerable.
Faced with these facts, TransCanada could do as President Obama suggested – reapply for permits, after the Fall elections and after changing its intended pipeline
route to avoid allegedly sensitive areas. In the meantime, it could continue trying to win friends and influence people.
Yes, it could. But doing so has significant pitfalls.
It would drag the process out, leave the company in the “kill zone” of media and environmentalist attacks, in a political no man’s land, amid deadly crossfire from
savvy and well-funded activists, journalists, and bureaucrats. It would also set the stage for anti-pipeline lawsuits in courts of their choosing, perhaps in “friendly”
lawsuits between “Green” plaintiffs and EPA or State – when and if permits finally are granted.
A further drawback is that focusing on the State Department and White House ignores the Interior Department, Fish & Wildlife Service, Environmental Protection
Agency, and many other federal and state regulatory and judicial agencies and processes that will still stand in the way of final project approval, and will likely take
years to navigate.
There is a better way.
TransCanada could and should work closely and cooperatively with farmers and farm bureaus, state governors, agencies and legislators, mayors and other
affected parties, to address concerns and compensate landowners for the use of their property, unavoidable impacts and damages in the unlikely event of an
accident. The company should emphasize that Keystone XL will create thousands of jobs; generate billions of dollars in private, local, state, and national revenue;
use the best and safest pipeline technology; and bring oil from a friendly country to American refineries, motorists, farmers, and manufacturers.
TransCanada should also take legal action, in state and/or federal courts of its choosing, over causes of action of its choosing. The company’s permit application
has been rejected – for specious environmental and overtly political reasons. The Obama administration’s decision is clearly “ripe” for litigation.
The company may be reluctant to sue. Litigation over such matters is not as common in Canada as in the lawsuit-happy USA; the judicial territory may be
unfamiliar; and the outcome is not certain.
However, in the United States, environmentalists often win in the courts of media and public opinion, especially in an election year, especially with
hundred-million-dollar anti-oil campaigns, laden with emotional rhetoric.
On the other hand, companies frequently win in U.S. courts of law, where they are able to compile complete judicial records with solid scientific facts supporting
their projects – something that is virtually impossible to do in a sound-bite-driven (and often biased) news media. The factually bankrupt rhetoric of
environmentalist campaigns is no match for sound science, when claims and arguments are scrutinized at the trial and appellate level. Faced with defeat, the Green
wolf packs often go off in search of easier prey.
The anti-pipeline, anti-oil sands groups will not disappear. They will most assuredly sue TransCanada and multiple government agencies, if permits are ultimately
issued. They will also do all they can to shut down any Pacific Gateway pipeline, any exports to Asia, and ultimately all oil sands operations.
This better way forward has strong probabilities for success. It is clearly in the national interest of both Canada and the United States that it be taken, and that it
succeed.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Canada: America's Northern Neighbor & Ally
Conservative columnist and political commentator and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death,
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the Congress Of
Racial Equality (CORE), the Center For The Defense Of Free Enterprise (CDFE), and the Atlas Economic Research
Foundation. Driessen has served on the Staffs of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Interior, as well as on that of
an energy trade association. He has often spoken and written on such topics as environmentalism, global climate change,
global warming alarmism, corporate social responsibility, and public policies relating to energy, the environment, and
economic development.
Driessen earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology and Field Ecology at Lawrence University, Appleton,
Wisconsin, and his Juris Doctor (JD) at the University of Denver College of Law. He received accreditation in Public
Relations from the Public Relations Society of America, New York, N.Y.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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