FOLLOW-UP ON PIPELINE POKER

It is no secret that the Obama administration supports higher gas prices.  
 
The Keystone XL pipeline would have provided more stability in oil supply and pricing at a time when crude oil from Mexico and Venezuela is declining.  The pipeline would have provided refiners in the Gulf region with a secure supply—and a supply from a friendly source. Less supply means higher prices.

Without the XL pipeline on the horizon, prices are predicted to increase as they did following the delay announcement.  Higher oil prices translate to higher prices at the pump. With the cover of environmental concerns as the cause, President Obama could put the pipeline off and raise gas prices without the average person realizing his responsibility for the increasing costs.  With higher gasoline prices, the Government Motors Chevy Volt becomes more attractive—giving the president a win/win.

So President Obama chose to appease the environmental base and raise gas prices rather than to support the jobs that he claims to want.  Additionally, the pipeline would have brought foreign money into the United States through increased exports of refined gasoline and provided a strong signal to the world markets that America is putting a long-term sustained strategy for expanding the domestic oil supplies we will need for decades to come.
 
TransCanada expected that the pipeline would be routinely approved—all previous cross-border pipeline requests have been granted.  They went through all the open houses and public meetings, did the environmental impact studies, and endured the most exhaustive and detailed review ever conducted for a crude oil pipeline.  Nebraska, and most of the United States, is already a web of pipelines.  However, they chose the cheapest route for the Keystone XL pipeline—which took it through the environmentally controversial area of Nebraska’s Sand Hills.  By choosing the short route, rather than adding about 250 miles of pipeline, they gave the environmentalists an unlikely alliance: Nebraska’s Republican lawmakers and traditionally conservative farmers.

America is in an economic war, we need what the Keystone XL pipeline has to offer. Keep the pressure on President Obama. Now that TransCanada has agreed to re-routing, they’ve called his bluff. Call the White House (202-456-1111) and tell President Obama to expedite the review and approve the Keystone XL pipeline.