Banning: Pipeline would bring bolster local economy
February 2, 2012
The State
Bill Banning, Lexington County Council
Banning: Pipeline would bring bolster local economy
By BILL BANNING
Guest Columnist
I’ve heard it said, “Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.”
In South Carolina and across our great country, anxiety is running high. We are mired in a deep recession, with our national unemployment rate at or exceeding 9 percent for more than 2 1/2 years. Although December’s rate did dip to 8.6 percent, it was mostly because more Americans have simply given up looking for work, greatly tempering hope that a jobs revival will happen anytime soon.
That’s what makes President Obama’s decision to deny the permit of a pipeline that would transport oil from Canada down to gulf refineries in the United States all the more alarming. Essentially, in the weakest economy in generations, the president rejected the ultimate “shovel-ready” $7 billion project, one stretching across thousands of miles and expected to create some 20,000 new jobs.
The president’s decision strikes at the very heart of the Midlands. Michelin, for example, is one of the largest employers in Lexington County, and the earthmover tires made at its facility off of I-20 are sent directly to the oil sands in Alberta, Canada. Congressman Joe Wilson has met with additional suppliers tied to pipeline in Aiken County and beyond. This is a business relationship we want to grow, not hinder.
I am a longtime member of the Lexington County Council and a proud Republican, but I know that our Democratic partners in economic development in the Midlands are every bit as committed to bringing quality, high-paying jobs into our region. We work together because there is no partisan divide when it comes to good jobs. We all want a vibrant, productive work force and the high quality of life that is inherent in a community engaged in productivity and economic growth.
Even labor unions hungry for jobs, as well as President Obama’s own White House Jobs Council, and many Democrats in Congress are on record supporting the KXL pipeline. It should have been an easy decision to proceed with the pipeline, especially as the State Department had all but cleared it with an environmental impact statement concluding the pipeline would not cause harm.
But instead of clearing the path for immediate jobs, the president put up a roadblock, honoring the view of radical environmentalists whose ultimate goal is to ensure not the utmost safety and security of the project but the collapse of the oil and gas industries, and with them the American economy.
Members of the U.S. House and Senate on both sides of the aisle are in favor of this job creator. I applaud the Democrats who are standing up to the president when they know he has so clearly made the wrong call.
As chairman of council’s economic development committee, I spend time listening to job creators and leaders in manufacturing. It’s a fact that a reliable and cost-effective supply of energy and natural gas is critical for our local manufacturers to compete globally. The Canadian government is now clear that if America doesn’t approve the pipeline it will explore moving the oil to China, strengthening its economy at the expense of ours.
Meanwhile, Americans will continue to be anxious about the lack of good jobs in an anemic economy. We’ll worry about our national energy security and our reliance on oil from unstable nations. We’ll lament the fact that we could solve many of our energy and economic problems if we only acted.
We should be aggressively expanding access to domestic oil and gas both on- and off-shore and strengthening our energy partnership with Canada. Instead, we have a White House that has politically calculated that the best action is no action, and that despite a foundering economy, America can afford to wait.
Mr. Banning is chairman of the Lexington County Council. Contact him atbbanning@lex-co.com.
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