Administration Punts Keystone Pipeline Decision

The Obama administration must believe that environmentalists, particularly those in Nebraska, will hit the polls in force when the 2012 national election comes. The State Department said it would delay a decision about the Keystone oil sands pipeline until 2013. The White House would be the first to claim that the U.S. needs energy alternatives to cut reliance on foreign oil. The pipeline decision undermines that.

The Keystone project will build a conduit from Canada into the central U.S. The pipeline has to go through Nebraska to make the project financially efficient. Environmentalists in the state say the line will go through the Nebraska Sand Hills area and over the Ogallala Aquifer. A break in the pipeline could damage the ecosystem in those areas.

Oddly enough, strong support for the pipeline came from House Speaker John Boehner, who is not in charge of the U.S. effort to become less dependent on foreign oil. Boehner’s concerns go beyond the oil issue to job creation. “More than 20,000 new American jobs have just been sacrificed in the name of political expediency. By punting on this project, the president has made clear that campaign politics are driving U.S. policy decisions — at the expense of American jobs,” he said.

The administration has said over and over that it will lead the effort to create new jobs. Part of that is to be through infrastructure repair or creation. The Keystone project falls into that category. The administration also claims to have a road map to energy independence. It has just opened large offshore tracts for new oil and gas exploration.

Is the administration’s goal to create jobs and get access to critical energy resources? Or, is the goal to protect the environment more important? The Keystone project is a critical test of these issues. The administration has made its decision. The environmentalist vote must be very important.

Douglas A. McIntyre