Trey Smith
It wasn't that long ago that President Obama announced that the Keystone XL project proposal was DOA. Mainstream environmental groups hailed the president's "courage" to stand up in protection of the environment. They spent an enormous amount of time and column inches declaring that grassroots pressure had allowed Obama to be the staunch defender of the planet and people's livelihoods that he truly is.
Sadly, it turns out to be another case of political theater. Obama's rejection of the pipeline project merely was a ruse. As Common Dreams recently reported,
A proposal by Canadian oil firm TransCanada to seek new approval for segments of its Keystone XL pipeline project was greeted warmly by the Obama White House today. In a letter sent to the US State Department, the company said it would seek a 'Presidential Permit application (cross border permit) in the near future for the Keystone XL Project from the U.S./Canada border in Montana to Steele City, Nebraska. TransCanada would supplement that application with an alternative route in Nebraska as soon as that route is selected.'I'm not overly upset that Obama seems to be backtracking again. I didn't believe his opposition was genuine. I expected TransCanada to bring a new proposal and for Team Obama to be receptive to it. So, this new development doesn't surprise me in the least.
What has my ire up is the grandstanding of the environmental groups. When Obama rejected the initial proposal, many of these groups acted like they had won a major victory. They used this so-called "victory" as a tool to rally support for the reelection of the prez.
But these same folks are not dummies. They know how Washington works these days. They know that Obama's rejection was nothing more than a tiny speed bump along the way toward the building of this pipeline. In other words, they KNOW that they had claimed no victory at all, yet they pretended that they had.
Like I wrote above, this whole situation is nothing more than political theater and it now turns out that several key environmental organizations had roles to play in the grand charade!
I just paid $4.14 for gas today...
ReplyDeleteAnd your point is what?
ReplyDeleteThe prices rose when he didn't approve the pipeline.
ReplyDeleteWith all due respect, I think that had little to do with it. Oil prices are on the uptick due to a) speculators and b) the contrived anxiety about going to war with Iran.
ReplyDeleteThe oil in the proposed pipeline is not even earmarked for US markets. The oil companies want to be able to sell it overseas.
...and demand in booming China and India. But Trey, the speculators you mentioned did have a hand in the uptick after the pipeline rejection.
ReplyDeleteI once worked with a guy who would leave his truck running all the time. He avowed that though an environmentalist, he was NOT an oil conservationist. He wanted it all burned up and gone, sooner the better. Weird philosophy, but I agree with the objective: getting on to some other, better fuel, and of course more efficient, smaller economic machine.