Obama Killed Pipeline Deal Over Politics, Not Environmental Concerns (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama nixes the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, sending our neighbor to the north in search of another willing partner in the expansion of the oil sands reserve in Alberta. It didn't take them long to find another country very interested in doing business in Canada: China.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Chinese leaders in November at the Pacific Rim economic summit in Hawaii and is set to make a state visit to China in February. Associated Press reported China has invested more than $16 billion into Canadian energy projects and is very interested in developing any resource that would give its growing economy access to Canadian oil.

Harper said he was "profoundly disappointed" by Obama's decision to axe the pipeline deal. Clearly, Harper can see Obama is playing to his environmentalist supporters in what may be a tight re-election campaign. That pandering is going to cost Americans thousands of jobs that would have resulted from the pipeline construction, plus all the spin off jobs that come with a project of that size.

Environmentalists are arguing the potential damage from such a long pipeline. But a quick walk down memory lane will remind everyone that environmentalist strongly opposed the Trans-Alaska pipeline back in the 1970s, and it has proved to be a complete success. A 1987 article in the Los Angeles Times reflected on the first 10 years of the pipeline's existence and the tremendous impact it had on Alaska and on over 70,000 workers.

The Keystone XL pipeline is an economic necessity for the U.S. and would create an unbroken partnership with our largest trading partner to the north. Were it not a hotly contested presidential election year, that pipeline would already be in the works. Americans need the jobs and the oil. There is no logical reason for Obama to give China an upper hand in negotiated with Canada -- well, except to garner a few more votes from his left-wing environmentalist supporters.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120129/pl_ac/10899809_obama_killed_pipeline_deal_over_politics_not_environmental_concerns

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