Criticism Pours In As Obama Rejects Keystone XL Jobs After 7 Years Of Stalling

Jobs & Keystone Killed

Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov 6, 2015:
The White House: this morning, President Obama Officially Killed the Keystone XL Pipeline! (ARRA News Service 11/6/2015) In addition, to this previous article, a few additional comments by other sources are reported below.

The House The House is not in session. The next meeting is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. on November 16, 2015.

The Senate is not in session today and will reconvene on Monday at 3 PM when it will resume consideration of H.R. 2029, the Fiscal Year 2016 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill.

Yesterday, Senate Democrats filibustered the Defense appropriations bill, H.R. 2685, for the third time. Later, though, the Senate finally voted 93-0 to agree to the motion to proceed to H.R. 2029.

Additional News and Comments on President Obama killing the Keystone Pipeline:

The New York Times writes, “President Obama on Friday announced that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a flash point in the debate over his climate policies.

“Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he is seeking to build an ambitious legacy on climate change. ...

“The move was made ahead of a major United Nations summit meeting on climate change in Paris in December, when Mr. Obama hopes to help broker a historic agreement committing the world’s nations to enacting new policies to counter global warming. While the rejection of the pipeline is largely symbolic, Mr. Obama has sought to telegraph to other world leaders that the United States is serious about acting on climate change.”

Of course, it’s worth remembering that the State Department concluded last year, in its own environmental assessment, that “the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would be unlikely to alter global greenhouse gas emissions,” as The Washington Post put it.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell joined many other Republicans in blasting the president’s decision. “I wish I were surprised by the President’s decision to reject this jobs and infrastructure project,” he said. “But it’s become painfully clear that the President is more interested in appeasing deep-pocketed special interests and extremists than helping tens of thousands of Americans who could have benefited from Keystone’s good jobs. Given this project’s importance to North American energy independence, the question still remains not if but when Keystone will be built. Republicans have no intention of giving up on common-sense jobs ideas like Keystone. Our nation’s long-term need for the energy and jobs Keystone would provide will certainly outlast the little over a year remaining in the term of the current Administration.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan said, “This decision isn’t surprising, but it is sickening. By rejecting this pipeline, the president is rejecting tens of thousands of good-paying jobs. He is rejecting our largest trading partner and energy supplier. He is rejecting the will of the American people and a bipartisan majority of the Congress. If the president wants to spend the rest of his time in office catering to special interests, that’s his choice to make. But it’s just wrong.”

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) noted how long the Obama administration stalled this project before finally rejecting it. He said, “It has taken more than seven years for President Obama to come clean with the American people and admit his anti-energy and anti-American jobs agenda. President Obama had an opportunity to help create good-paying jobs with the construction of the Keystone pipeline, but instead he chose to blatantly disregard the economic needs of this nation, the need for good-paying jobs, like union jobs, energy costs for Montana families and the will of the American people. The rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline by President Obama is an affront to the American people.”

But support for Keystone XL has always been bipartisan, and several Senate Democrats also criticized President Obama’s rejection of this job-creating infrastructure project. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said, “Unfortunately, [the Obama Admininstration] made a decision purely driven by politics that ignored the facts.” And Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said, “In my opinion, this decision was based purely on political desires and not policy facts.”

And unions from the Teamsters to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers to the Plumbers & Pipefitters to even AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka supported Keystone XL for the jobs it would have created.

Former Arkansas Governor and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee released the following statement: "Why is President Obama so obsessed with worshiping the gods of green energy and rejecting the Keystone pipeline? Why is Obama more interested in satisfying radical liberals than creating tens of thousands of good-paying American jobs? Building the Keystone Pipeline is an absolute no-brainer, too bad Obama has lost his mind. Radical Islamic terrorism is a greater threat than a sunburn."

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