Jasper Journal

Beginning the week with another article from Paul. Well put my friend; I agree completely. The President’s handling of this issue is a disgrace!

Politics ahead of Country

On Thursday, the State Department made the decision to re-study the proposed Keystone pipeline from Canada to Illinois and Oklahoma. This means that a final decision will not be made until sometime in 2013. The ostensible reason is to study alternate routes that avoid passing over the aquifer in Nebraska. If anyone truly believes this is the motive, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

On the issue of the pipeline, the Obama Administration has been between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Unions argue that the pipeline will create jobs; the lowest estimate is 6,000-7,000; others place the number nearer 20,000 jobs. The environmental movement condemns the pipeline because of the potential for spills, as well as contamination of the Ogallala aquifer.

If the Administration had made a decision on the pipeline, one of these two critical constituencies would have been alienated — less than a year before the Presidential election. Hence, to coin a phrase from the 1960s, “Not to decide is to decide.” The can is kicked down the road, and when a final decision does have to be made, it does not matter which group is alienated. The environmental movement is ecstatic, believing that the delay effectively kills the pipeline.

This is the most cynical manipulation of an issue by a President that I have seen in my lifetime. Politics — being re-elected — has trumped what is best for the nation. In the middle of a recession, with an unemployment rate of 9%, we avoid creating thousands of jobs sustainable without federal dollars. Do opponents of the pipeline really believe that Canada will not exploit the Alberta oil sands without the pipeline? Rest assured, Canada will extract the oil, but it will probably be sent to China via tankers across the Pacific (oh, and by the way, via a new pipeline across western Canada). The potential damage from an at-sea disaster far outweighs a spill on land, where it can be more quickly contained. Can anyone name a land-based oil disaster that compares to the Exxon Valdez or the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

The environmental disaster argument, however, is a red herring. There have been numerous spills along the existing pipeline; even the largest was contained within the pumping facility. The real goal is to do anything that would diminish the use of fossil fuels. While this is a laudable goal in the abstract, in practice it is completely unrealistic, at least for the next several decades. Pipeline or no pipeline, we will continue importing oil. The only question is which nations will be our primary providers: Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran? If you accept the pipeline opponents’ argument, why would we want to depend on a liberal democracy like Canada — our good friend with an excellent record on the environment — when we can depend on despots and autocrats like Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and the House of Saud?