At a time of rising gas prices and high unemployment, one commentator just doesn't get why the president rejected the Keystone XL pipeline.
Carrie Lukas, managing director of the Independent Women's Forum (IWF), thinks the president's decision was a political calculus, but she does not understand the logic.
"Maybe the administration felt like … the environmental movement had been let down. Maybe they thought they could excite them enough to not only vote for the president, but contribute and work for the president's re-election," she suggests.
Whatever the case may be, Lukas says an environmentalist should have wanted the United States to be the partner with which Canada moves forward with in terms of developing this resource.
"Canada is not going to just sit on these reserves and not explore them, not bring them to market. So now they're looking at partnering with China instead of us," the IWF commentator laments. "That's a loss for the U.S. from an economic term.
"But from an environmental term, who do we think is going to be the better steward of the environment? The Chinese? Or the Americans, with our many, many regulatory bureaus … to make sure that we took every precaution possible?"
When it comes to the issue of gas prices, Lukas undoubtedly believes the White House is alarmed by the increase in prices, which are likely to get worse as summer approaches — a season that she calls "prime-time for the election."
The House did approve a bill last week (February 16) that would take President Obama's authority to decide on TransCanada's project and give it to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, that measure is not expected to win approval in the Senate.