President Barack Obama said on Thursday he supported the State Department’s decision to study alternative routes for the Keystone XL pipeline, which will delay a decision on the project for more than a year.
The delay means a final decision to approve or reject the controversial Canada-to-Texas pipeline would not occur until after next year’s presidential election, taking political heat off of Obama, who is running for re-election.
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Is this really any guarantee that he’ll eventually come down against it entirely?
He doesn’t have to. He just does nothing, the default is a delay this problem goes away for now.
… this problem goes away for now.
Not enough to justify the headline of this post.
You actually had me wondering whether Obama had developed an environmental conscience/consciousness – which in turn set me to listening for angelic trumps and other signs of the world ending.
Pierce, no. First, you have quoted my response to a question that is not about the headline of the post. The question asked was about Obama’s decision, not whether or not the pipeline is killed, as indicated in the headline.
As far as the headline goes, it is essentially true. In practice nothing like this ever totally goes away. It is always possible to restart the space shuttle problem or to bring back large sideburns. However, both are dead because various decisions were made (or people stopped using whatever drug they were on, or whatever). This decision makes the pipeline go away. It will be brought back if the political climate for it is right, which can always be the case, or not.
Please show me a major energy project that was abandoned with a clear paragraph or two by a leader or even an agency that stated why it would not be pursued. You can’t. Now try it with any major public works project. That’s rare, very rare (I can think of a few but they are a very small minority).
Be vigilant. The pipe line is dead, but it may well be back. And, go ahead and insist that Obama do something that elected officials basically don’t do if you want, but that would reflect more on one’s understanding of the process than on Obama.
This was a very good move and it is very good news.
… something that elected officials basically don’t do …
Not very long ago, not at all far from here, a video showed a certain governor vowing to shut down three entire cabinet departments, while a federal Representative standing beside him called for zapping five.
This is good news, as far as it goes – but the gap between this decisive-as-BHO-ever-gets punting and “audacity” continues to leave me underwhelmed.
Might be a good time to buy Enbridge.