All in a Day's Work: Obama Kills Keystone XL Pipeline, Thousands of Jobs, and Millions in Public Revenue in One Fell Swoop

It now appears that the Obama administration will reject the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Business Insider reports:

The administration will be unlikely to approve the pipeline under the timeline for the payroll tax cut extension law which requires a decision by February 21

The project has been extremely controversial for two main reasons. Those in favor of the pipeline point to the 8.5% unemployment rate, and point out that the pipeline could create much-needed high-paying jobs. Moreover, it would provide cash-strapped governments with tax revenues. On the other hand after the BP Deepwater spill of 2010 and ExxonMobil's July 2011 pipeline spill, environmentalists are pressuring the Obama administration to nip the project in the bud.

Let's review. The project will provide "much-needed high paying jobs" in a time of excessive unemployment.  That's good for the private sector.  The project would also increase tax revenues.  That's good for the public sector.  It's good for small-government conservatives and big-government progressives alike. It is ready-made middle ground to boost employment and lessen public debt, no negotiation necessary.

Yet Obama will kill the project because environmentalist kooks don't like oil, and because they fear another accident might take place.

 

It would be nice if ideological bulwarks paid the bills- but they don't. I cannot just stop going to work because I don't like traffic and I have been in a car accident before. But that's the real world that we live in- Obama and his far-left zealots do not occupy it. He lives in a world where $4 million dollar family vacations grow on public money trees and another trillion in debt is just "stimulus." 

 

And now, thousands of Americans will remain unemployed by Obama's hand. State coffers that provide for teachers, police, firefighters, and their pension funds are in dire need of revenue to remain afloat- Obama has ensured that they get millions less than they could potentially have. He is willfully suppressing job growth and depressing government revenues to appease the environmentalist fringe.

Independent voters, are you paying attention?

 

William Sullivan