By Paul Driessen
Saturday, February 01, 2014
President Obama has repeatedly said he wants to turn the
economy around, put America back to work, produce more energy, improve public
safety, and open new markets to goods stamped “Made in the USA.” In his State
of the Union address he said, if it becomes necessary because of congressional
inaction, “I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the
permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on
the job as fast as possible.”
Unfortunately, like Arafat, he never misses an
opportunity to miss an opportunity to do all these things.
Most Americans are no longer fooled by empty hope and
change hype. In December only 74,000 jobs were created (many of them low-paying
part-time seasonal positions), while 374,000 more people gave up looking for
work. Not surprisingly, recent polls have found that three-quarters of
Americans say the country still appears to be in a recession, two-thirds don’t
trust the President to make the right decisions for the country, and barely 30%
say the nation is “heading in the right direction.”
The President needs to use his pen and phone to free our
energy, economy and entrepreneurial instincts. But ANWR, OCS, HF, KXL and other
solutions were AWOL from the SOTU. They were sacrificed on the CO2 and CMGW
altar, by the POTUS, EPA, DOI and DOE, in obeisance to the EDF, NRDC, other
environmentalist pressure groups, and assorted unelected, unaccountable,
unconstitutional autocrats.
Our nation is blessed with vast energy, metallic, mineral,
forest and other resources, waiting to be tapped. But they are locked up in
favor of crony-capitalist, eco-unfriendly, land-hungry, subsidy-dependent,
nigh-useless pseudo-alternatives that are dearly beloved by utopian
environmentalists – and by politicians hungry for campaign contributions from
businesses that they repay with billions in other people’s money, taken from
taxpayers at the point of an IRS gun to prop up renewable energy schemes.
Our hydrocarbon wealth especially offers amazing
benefits: improved human safety, health, welfare and living standards, in a
more stable world, with new sources of jobs, wealth and income equality. Not
tapping these resources is contrary to Obama’s promises and America’s
interests. It is immoral.
Of all the opportunities arrayed before him, the
1,179-mile Alberta to Texas Keystone XL pipeline (KXL) is the most “shovel
ready.” Indeed, it awaits merely a presidential phone call or signature, to
slash bureaucratic red tape, streamline the permitting process, and create
construction and manufacturing jobs. Some 40,000 jobs in fact – more than twice
as many as created nationwide last December.
As I have pointed out before,
there are compelling reasons why the President should end this interminable
six-years-and-counting dilatory KXL review process – right now.
Jobs. KXL would create an estimated 20,000 construction
jobs; another 10,000 in factories that make the steel, pipelines, valves,
cement and equipment needed to build the pipeline; thousands more in hotel,
restaurant and other support industries; and still more jobs in the Canadian,
North Dakota and other oil fields whose output would be transported by the
pipeline to refineries and petrochemical plants where still more workers would
be employed. With Mr. Obama and his EPA waging war on communities and states
that mine and use coal, these jobs are even more important to blue-collar
Americans in flyover country.
Revenue. States along the pipeline route would receive $5
billion in new property tax revenues, and still more in workers’ income tax
payments. Federal coffers would also realize hefty gains.
Safety. Right now most of the oil from Canada’s oil sands
and North Dakota’s Bakken shale deposits move by railroad and truck fuel tanks,
often through populated areas. Truck and rail accidents have forced towns to
evacuate and even killed 53 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Corporate
executives and federal regulators are working to improve tanker designs and
reroute traffic. But despite occasional accidents, pipelines have a much better
safety record. KXL would be built with state-of-the-art pipe, valves and other
components, to the latest design, manufacturing, construction and inspection
specifications. It has been configured to avoid population centers, sensitive
wildlife areas and the Ogallala Aquifer.
Resource conservation and energy needs. Building Keystone
will help ensure that vast petroleum resources can be efficiently utilized to
meet consumer needs. In conjunction with other pipelines, it will greatly
reduce the need to flare (burn and waste) natural gas that is a byproduct of
oil production in Bakken shale country. The pipelines will also help get
propane and natural gas to places that need these fuels. Recent pipeline
problems, plus unusually high demands for propane to convert corn to ethanol,
created soaring prices and shortages amid one of the nastiest North American
cold spells in decades.
KXL will also enable state and private lands to continue
contributing to America’s hydrocarbon renaissance. That is especially important
in the face of congressional and Obama Administration refusals to open more
federal onshore and offshore oil and gas prospects in Alaska and the Lower 48
States.
US-Canadian relations. The endless dithering over KXL has
frayed relations between Canada and the United States. It has compelled the
Canadians to take decisive steps toward building new pipelines from the Alberta
oil sands fields to Superior, Wisconsin … and to Canada’s west coast, for
shipment to Asia’s growing economies. Further delays will not reduce oil sands
development – only the oil’s destination.
Climate change. In his SOTU speech, President Obama
informed us that “climate change is a fact.” Well, duh. It’s been a fact since
Earth was formed. The only pertinent issues are these: Are humans causing
imminent, unprecedented climate change disasters? And can we prevent those
alleged disasters, by drastically curtailing hydrocarbon use, slashing living
standards and switching to renewables?
There is no evidence to support either proposition.
Moreover, oil sands production would add a minuscule 0.06% to US greenhouse gas
emissions, a tiny fraction of that amount to global carbon dioxide emissions,
and an undetectable 0.00001 degrees C per year to useless computer-model
scenarios for global warming.
A January 24 letter spearheaded by Senator John Hoeven
(R-ND) and signed by all 45 Republican Senators notes many of these points and
requests that President Obama permit KXL pipeline construction “as soon as
possible.” Several Democrats told Hoeven privately that they support his effort
and Keystone, but are nervous about challenging the President or Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly.
On January 31, the State Department reaffirmed its March
2013 conclusion that KXL is unlikely to noticeably increase demand for Canadian
oil sands or global emissions of carbon dioxide. Now that the President has
been reelected, he clearly has “greater flexibility” and doesn’t need to kowtow
to his radical green base. By cutting off another year-long study of whether
Keystone is “in the national interest,” picking up his pen and phone, and
approving the pipeline, he could even satisfy his union base.
Democrats are urging unemployed workers to lobby
Republicans for extended benefits. They should instead lobby Democrats and the
President to do what’s right for America: create the jobs they promised, by
approving Keystone – along with drilling, fracking, mining, and reduced taxes
and regulations.
America is waiting. Will there finally be real hope and
change? Or just more hype and empty rhetoric?
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