Forum Post: Obama’s Rejection of the Keystone Pipeline: A Gift for Republicans in 2012
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 19, 2012, 2:14 a.m. EST by jaxxen
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When President Obama put the kibosh on the Keystone Pipeline, environmentalist Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “The pipeline was rejected for all the right reasons. President Obama put the health and safety of the American people and our air, lands and water—our national interest—above the interests of the oil industry.” That was false when she said it, for Obama hadn’t really put our air, land, or water on a pedestal. Rather, he simply cowed down to environmental activists (like Beinecke) who wanted him to do so in a bid to appeal once more to the far left in his party, and to subsequently lock in more votes for November 2012. In so doing, he rejected a pipeline that not only would have created thousands of jobs, but would have brought an untold amount of crude to the Gulf of Mexico for America’s refiners to use to make gasoline and other fuels.
And as the fruit of this asinine decision is born out at the gas pump, where gas is already over $3.50 a gallon and headed to $5 by summer’s end, every would-be GOP Presidential candidate should be reminding voters: “This is Obama’s hope and change—$5 a gallon gas must have been what he had in mind when said he was going to ‘fundamentally change America.’” Let’s face it folks, the gas prices are a misery index in and of themselves. And Obama knows it, so he’s trying to spin high gas prices as proof the economy is recovering (as if high gas prices means our economy has corrected itself). If that’s true, maybe the high healthcare prices Obama used to justify the need for Obamacare were really just proof that our healthcare system was already righting its own ship?
The bottom line: Obama is an anti-capitalist and an archetypical leftist. As such, nothing makes him happier than to teach America a lesson: to let Americans get a taste of what other nation’s pay for their gasoline, and perhaps even to force us to trade our SUVs for little plastic cars that run off batteries. This is the message Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich need to be hammering home every time someone sticks a microphone in their faces. Gasoline was approximately $1.84 a gallon when Obama entered office, its price has risen 83% on his watch. If he believes such an increase in per-gallon price is the answer, Americans deserve a new question. It’s time to drill here, drill now. And it’s time to build the pipeline. Until then, Obama’s rejection of the pipeline is the gift that keeps on giving for would-be GOP presidential candidates who want to distinguish their energy policy from that of our current occupant in the White House. We desperately need a president who puts our energy needs above the delusional demands of the environmentalists.
Gas was a little over $1 a gallon the year I got my license. That was during the first year of Bush. At the end of 2008 it was over $4. This was largely because increased speculation allowed in the market. It dropped to under $2 for a few months at the beginning of Obama and then went right back up as expected.
The US is the third largest oil producing country in the world. We don't use it. The oil that would run through the Keystone pipeline is intended for foreign markets just like the oil that is produced in the US. The pipeline is not about making the US energy independent. It is not about creating jobs. It is about reducing cost, reducing jobs, and getting huge amounts of oil to foreign markets for higher profits.
Republicans are slaves to the Great Dragon (China). They would build a leaking pipeline across this great nation - despoiling it - to feed oil to China. They are traitors and communist sympathizers.
Communist China is really just state run Capitalist China. It is the wild east of business opportunities. More people are getting rich from China than anywhere else. Dictatorship of the proletariat it is not.
It is not the free-market either. You are being used.
I said it is state run. There is no such thing as free market.
I didn't mean that you're being used...actually I thought I was dealing with some libertarian rhapsodizing about the wonders of China. Sorry, I can see from your first post that you're a thinking human being deserving of my deep respect.
haha its cool.
well said, hopefully more here will see that corporatism and communism have nothing to do with free market capitalism.
corporatism/communism is about slavery
free market capitalism is free markets between free peoples, what we have is anyhting but that.
You just might have a leg to stand on were the oil to be transported by the pipeline to be refined and the yield from that sold to US manufacturers or consumers. At that point I'd still have problems with Keystone XL due to the high probability of damage to those environments through which the pipe passes (i.e. you're risking permanent damage from direct toxicity, especially to aquifers that act as large-scale drinking water supplies, for something that'll buy us fifty years at most) but I'd be able to understand why people would support it.
That is, in fact, not the case. The oil from Keystone XL would be refined for export, meaning that it would most likely all go to China and gas in America would still be above $5 a gallon come this summer no matter how much we pump out of Athabasca's tar sands. To sum it up, this would increase the scope of use of some of the least efficient and dirtiest methods of extraction we have and potentially foul groundwater supplies across a good-sized belt of this country, all to provide more natural resources to the country that pretty much made off with most of our manufacturing sector. Forgive me, but I don't see how this pipeline is even remotely a good idea.
As the eminent climatologist Dr. Hansen said of the pipeline in relation to the environment, if it goes through, "game over."
It can be no surprise about the slant the OP article has, with its substitution of false characterization for journalism, its speculation in place of evidence, its distortions and lies in place of reality. It was published by Andrew Breitbart, the CPAC honored lying scumbag made famous for his falsehoods.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201007210054
I agree. As soon as the decision was announced I envisioned GOP commercials this summer when gas is peaking saying how Obama sent this oil to China.
Not really, we're almost past the point where this kind of stuff matters. Our friends in the media will heap torrents of abuse on the Republicans for us during this cycle and we will prevail.
Think about it, did Fast and Furious get any traction? An Obama policy that allowed thousands of weapons into Mexico and has killed at least two federal agents and 200 Mexicans, no problem, not news (lol, imagine if Bush had done it!). What about the "green loans"? No traction, 4 billion in failed loans to campaign contributors and barely a ripple in the news.
Face it, there is nothing this president can do that will get mainstream press to print negatives...nothing.
As negative as your point is I'm afraid it may very well be true.