Really? Obama will block the Keystone XL Pipeline?

The AP just wrote an article about the vote this morning in the Senate which, according to AP, gave president Obama a victory in obtaining a continuation of the payroll tax cut for two months. AP did mention that the bill requires Obama to make a decision on whether or not to authorize the Keystone XL Pipeline within the next 60 days, but AP sloughs this off as meaningless. AP then adds this: "One senior administration official said the president would almost certainly refuse to grant a permit. The official was not authorized to speak publicly."

So here is the question of the hour: will Obama actually prevent construction of a pipeline that would result in 20,000 construction jobs and about 100,000 permanent jobs for the next forty years because environmentalists are worried that the pipeline might leak? According to the AP, the answer is yes.

Let's look at the issue of pipeline safety. First you should know that according to the Department of Transportation, there are over 2.3 million miles of pipelines for oil and gas in the USA. Now think back to the last time you heard of a leak in an oil pipeline here in America. Can't think of one? That is because leaks in oil pipelines are exceedingly rare and easily dealt with.

Well what does the federal government itself say about pipelines. Here is an excerpt from the Department of Transportation:

"The nation's pipelines are a transportation system. Pipelines enable the safe movement of extraordinary quantities of energy products to industry and consumers, literally fueling our economy and way of life. The arteries of the Nation's energy infrastructure, as well as the safest and least costly ways to transport energy products, our oil and gas pipelines provide the resources needed for national defense, heat and cool our homes, generate power for business and fuel an unparalleled transportation system.

The nation's more than two million miles of pipelines safely deliver trillions of cubic feet of natural gas and hundreds of billions of ton/miles of liquid petroleum products each year. They are essential: the volumes of energy products they move are well beyond the capacity of other forms of transportation. It would take a constant line of tanker trucks, about 750 per day, loading up and moving out every two minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to move the volume of even a modest pipeline. The railroad-equivalent of this single pipeline would be a train of 75 2,000-barrel tank rail cars everyday. These alternatives would require many times the people, clog the air with engine pollutants, be prohibitively expensive and -- with many more vehicles on roads and rails carrying hazardous materials -- unacceptably dangerous.

Pipeline systems are the safest means to move these products. The federal government rededicated itself to pipeline safety in 2006 when the PIPES Act was signed. It mandates new methods and makes commitments for new technologies to manage the integrity of the nation's pipelines and raise the bar on pipeline safety."



If Obama actually denies a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, he will put himself on the side of crazy extreme environmentalists who fight everything that has to do with fossil fuels no matter what the cost or the truth. He will also put himself firmly on the side of those who are thwarting economic growth and the return of jobs to the USA. In my opinion, such a move would be suicidal for Obama. But then again, he is such an ideologue that he just might do that.