Is President Fossil-Fuels-Are-So-Yesterday trying to make us forget that he bowed to pressure from his small but affluent environmentalist base and nixed the Keystone XL pipeline? (He also lobbied Democrats in Congress to oppose the Keystone pipeline.)
But that was yesterday. Byron York amusingly describes the setting for the president’s appearance yesterday in Oklahoma:
When the president appeared in Cushing, White House image makers positioned him in front of huge stockpiles of pipe — tons and tons of pipe. Message: Obama loves pipelines. "Under my administration," the president said, "we've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some."
It was in Cushing that the president announced that he is going to expedite the portion of the Keystone project between Oklahoma and Texas. This can’t really be held against him by environmentalists for the simple fact that this section of the pipeline doesn’t require the president’s approval. It’s a freebie.
The president’s decision against the longer portion of the pipeline makes him “personally responsible” for keeping 2 million barrels a day from coming to the U.S. from our friendly neighbor to the north. The pipeline is also approved by 57 percent of the American public.
As Bryon says, it looks like the president is going to lose on the Keystone XL pipeline, at least for the time being. I suppose it would be too much to ask that he admit this. The problem is that, after November, if President Obama gets a second term, he will very likely revert to his original position.
P.S. For those of you who savored the president’s claim that Solyndra, a pet project of the administration to the tune of $535,000 lost to taxpayer, was not an administration project per se, Rob Long has a nice little piece on Ricochet: “When You Have to Say ‘Per Se,’ It Means You Are Lying.”