Keystone Energy Forum

Politics delay Keystone XL Pipeline and jobs

By David Wilkins

I visited Canada’s oil sands early on in my service as U.S. ambassador to Canada, and I have been privileged to return several times over the past six years. I remain awed by the ingenuity at work there — from the massive 12-foot-high tires made by Michelin in Lexington County, to the dedication of both the private and public sectors to leaving the smallest environmental footprint possible.

The U.S. already receives twice as much oil from Canada as we do from any other foreign country, and that capacity would have been doubled with a new pipeline project, but for a decision made by the Obama administration.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would transport crude from Alberta’s oil sands down to the Gulf of Mexico. Recently the Obama administration punted on a critical decision to approve the KXL permit, delaying it until after the November 2012 election.

The Wall Street Journal called it a “Keystone Cop-Out.” I have gone a step further and called it a catastrophic cop-out, one with certain economic and diplomatic consequences.

Elected officials from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham called KXL approval a “no-brainer.” After all, what could be easier than supporting energy exported from a steadfast friend, an ally in the war on terror, and from a country deeply committed to environmental stewardship?

What could make more sense than approving a project that means 20,000 new jobs in the U.S. alone? Here in South Carolina which has been hit particularly hard by the lingering recession, the KXL project was expected to create some 2,000 jobs, adding $128 million to our state’s economy over the next four years.

Add to all this that only last month, the president’s own White House Jobs Council cautiously supported the KXL project, and the environmental impact statement found the pipeline would not cause harm, KXL approval seemed not just an easy decision, but an obvious one.

So what turned common sense on its head?

Environmental radicals in the U.S., which include the various “Occupy” protesters and Hollywood hipsters, stung by a series of environmental disappointments the last two years, decided the KXL pipeline was their cause célèbre.

Back in 2008, they had high hopes, with a brand new president and a Democratic Congress, that their environmental wish list would at last be granted.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, environmental groups have been dealt several setbacks. In 2009, a climate change bill died in the Senate and with it the promise of legislatively mandated cap and trade, and “climategate” emerged suggesting the manipulation of scientific climate data. More recently the scandals involving the administration favoring multi-million dollar loans to renewable energy companies like Solyndra, only to see them file for bankruptcy, have left environmental activists reeling.

As a result, the more strident environmentalists were demanding a victory and what was a “no-brainer” pipeline project approval, became a “no way!” for a portion of President Barack Obama’s base who demanded tangible proof of his fidelity to their cause. Then with Nebraska expressing concern over the project and seeking an alternative route to avoid areas in the Sand Hills the state fears would be vulnerable to a spill, the administration had a hook on which to hang the delay.

So now the U.S. State Department is reviewing that alternative route and conveniently, a decision has been postponed until 2013.

The permitting process that usually takes 18 months will now take 54 months. That’s a long time to wait on jobs — especially those “shovel ready” jobs the president says he wants to create.

Activists claimed victory over the delay but will these same environmental groups cheer when and if Nebraska and the Obama administration agree on a new route to avoid the Sand Hills? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, the American unemployment rate hangs at a dismal 9 percent and the president’s handpicked appointees on the National Labor Relations Board work to kill the thousands of good jobs created by Boeing here in our right-to-work state.

The president likes to claim that we “can’t wait!” on job creation, but apparently he certainly can — at least until after November 2012.