The Obama administration is again delaying a decision on whether to approve the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a move Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry says is nothing more than a gift to the environmental lobby that could force Canada to abandon the U.S. as a partner on this critical project.
“The hardcore greens came out a couple months ago, after the final environmental impact study was ruled as a final study by the State Department. They held a press conference saying, ‘We will boycott the 2014 elections if the president signs this.’ The president knows. His brain is telling him that it has to be signed. There’s just no good reason to deny the permit except for the political pressures that are on him from his far left,” said Terry, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
“So (the administration) found another creative, meaningless way to just delay signing that permit until after the elections,” he said.
If this is just a political calculation, the environmental lobby appears to carry more weight inside the White House than Democratic lawmakers from right-leaning states and even multiple labor unions anxious to get to work on the pipeline. At least 11 Democrats in the U.S. Senate have publicly urged Obama to green-light the pipeline and unions like the Laborers International Union of America (LIUNA).
Terry says there is enough support in the Senate to break a filibuster and maybe even override an Obama veto of the pipeline. He says the fight inside organized labor is a bit more complex.
“It’s the trade unions that will go to work at good middle class wages, but those are the ones that the president’s throwing under the bus, a bus probably driven by a Teamster who would actually benefit from this project. The reality is the major political unions today, like the SEIU and the government employees, they’re standing with the green organizations opposing this pipeline,” said Terry.
Terry also noted Democratic super donor Tom Steyer has promised to raise $100 million for Democrats to make climate change a major issue this year, but only if Keystone doesn’t happen.
Despite more than five years of evaluation and final environmental approval by Obama’s own State Department, the administration says it needs more time before rendering a final decision. One reason it says is to carefully consider a large number of public comments solicited on the issue. It also claims the route of the pipeline is still up in the air after a federal judge in Nebraska rejected it.
“That is an invalid excuse. There’s just no basis to delay the pipeline because of that. First of all, that decision is so faulty that it was immediately stayed by law. Secondly, go ahead and start construction of the pipeline in Montana and South Dakota before they resolve these issues,” said Terry.
“The court case would not interfere with the construction of the pipeline. So it’s really a faux reason. You have to fall back on what I think it is and it’s all politics,” said Terry, who says outside of the political money at stake Obama is stuck between his personal aversion to such energy products and the inability to come up with a good reason to reject it.
And the congressman is doubtful that Obama will ever make a decision on the pipeline.
“I don’t know how to figure this president out, especially on issues like this. I think in his heart he would like to veto it or not sign it but he also knows that there really isn’t a good reason to kill it and that he should sign it. When all their environmental studies, all of them, came out and said that it would actually reduce carbon emissions by using a pipeline instead of hauling it on rail or trucks. I would think that the environmentalists would want it, but they won’t and I don’t think the president wants to sign it either,” said Terry.
While the clock ticks on the Obama administration, it’s also ticking on Canada, where the government and energy producer TransCanada have made it clear they’ll ship the oil to China if the U.S. doesn’t want it.
“I had a conversation just a few weeks ago with the ambassador from Canada. He said they’re already going forward with the pipeline to the east and the right-of-way is already all reserved now for a pipeline from Alberta to the west coast and there’s probably going to be two to the west coast (for shipping to China). So Canada is already implementing Plan B as we speak. The issue is whether or not the United States is ever going to adopt the Keystone XL so that it goes to our refineries and creates jobs and prosperity along the route,” said Terry.