Obama Asserts He’s The Decider on Keystone XL Pipeline, Cites Risk to Drinking Water, Public Health

[ProSense]

Obama Asserts He’s The Decider on Keystone XL Pipeline, Cites Risk to Drinking Water, Public Health

By Joe Romm

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Today, in an interview with Omaha station KETV (video here), Obama (aka The Decider) walked that back entirely:

The State Department’s in charge of analyzing this, because there’s a pipeline coming in from Canada. They’ll be giving me a report over the next several months, and, you know, my general attitude is, what is best for the American people? What’s best for our economy both short term and long term? But also, what’s best for the health of the American people? Because we don’t want for examples aquifers, they’re adversely affected, folks in Nebraska obviously would be directly impacted, and so we want to make sure we’re taking the long view on these issues.

We need to encourage domestic oil and natural gas production. We need to make sure that we have energy security and aren’t just relying on Middle East sources. But there’s a way of doing that and still making sure that the health and safety of the American people and folks in Nebraska are protected, and that’s how I’ll be measuring these recommendations when they come to me.

Well, the long view is that dirty fossil fuels, like the tar sands, are not merely an unsustainable source of jobs, but they are essentially fatal to efforts to protect the health and well-being of Americans (see James Hansen slams Keystone XL Canada-U.S. Pipeline: “Exploitation of tar sands would make it implausible to stabilize climate and avoid disastrous global climate impacts”).

The reporter asked Obama about “the potential for jobs, does that play into the equation at all?” The President answered:

It does, but I think folks in Nebraska like all across the country aren’t going to say to themselves, “We’ll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health or rich land that’s so important to agriculture in Nebraska are being adversely affected” because those create jobs, and you know when somebody gets sick that’s a cost that the society has to bear as well. So these are all things that you have to take a look at when you make these decisions.

This certainly sounds like the president is giving himself rhetorical room to delay the decision (to do a better environmental impact statement or examine alternative routes) or kill the pipeline outright.

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[Bragi]

1. This dirty oil is more harmful than the pipeline

I really can't see how this (or any) pipeline over land could do any serious environmental harm, since in the event of leak, you turn the tap to the off position and fix it.

What is known to be very harmful, however, is the dirty tar sands oil itself, which requires huge carbon emissions just to extract and refine it into a useable product.

Because of this, dirty tar sands oil should be developed, if at all, right after we burn the last barrel of conventional oil.

That's really what Obama ought to be telling Canada's oil industry-bought federal government.

And if Canada's conservative Prime Minister (who hates Obama, incidentally) decides to ship Canada's dirty oil to China because the U.S won't buy it, then so be it.

Eventually, Canada and whoever buys our dirty oil will have to cover the cost of related carbon emissions, which if Obama is smart, won't be the U.S.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. K & R

:kick:

[Solomon]

3. But wait.... I thought he already

approved it. Didn't we have to endure daily threads from outragers mad at Obama for approving it. Even saw people saying it was the last straw

Of course if he doesn't approve it, the same outragers will rail about how he's fucking things up.

[great white snark]

4. K&R

Thank you Ms. Pro

[Beacool]

5. Well, duh.

Plenty of people were going after the State Department, but it is obvious that the final decision is going to come from the WH.

:shrug:

[bvar22]

6. Bookmarked!

:patriot:



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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