In his weasel-worded decision to block a perfectly harmless pipeline that would have provided America with jobs, energy and hope, President Barack Obama betrayed his country, lied and even welshed on a deal with Congress. I am sorry to say so, but it’s true. Let’s look at some history to get there.
Not so long ago, this country was in a terrible energy fix. Thanks largely to China and India, world demand for oil was going up while supplies remained limited, meaning prices were soaring as dependence on production in the volatile Middle East grew. However, owing in part to new technology, we found vast new possibilities to obtain oil and gas in the United States, and our neighbors were discovering new resources, too.
Canadian tar sands, it turns out, hold 100 billion barrels of obtainable oil, which is to say, we have Saudi Arabia II sitting right next door. Stretching a pipeline from Canada to Texas refineries is no big deal in a country with 2 million miles of pipeline already. Building it would create thousands of jobs, there could be another 85,000 jobs created once the project has been going for a while and experts note that a pipeline is far cheaper and safer than other modes of transportation, especially shipping it across the ocean.
The Keystone XL pipeline, in short, would assist in a $200 billion bonanza, but some environmentalists were unhappy because this tar-sands oil has a lot of carbon dioxide in it, and, by their calculations, would contribute to global warming. There were swift, decisive answers to their concerns. One was that if we don’t use the oil, China will. China then gets all the advantages, and the global-warming risk is still there.