Thursday, January 19, 2012

Keystone Cop

By now you've heard that Barack Obama has sandbagged the Keystone XL pipeline, which was going to be used to get Canadian oil down to our refining facilities in Texas. If you want a Canadian perspective on the matter, check out this video. It's long, but commenter Ezra Levant makes the following points:

  • Canada sells all of its oil to the U.S. If we won't buy it, someone else will.
  • The decision benefits Venezuela
  • The environmental concerns that have been raised are all red herrings, since hundreds of pipelines of various sorts already crisscross the Ogalala aquifer
  • In 2008 Obama promised to end our dependence on buying oil from the Middle East and Venezuela; this decision runs counter to that
Definitely worth a click.

9 comments:

Brian said...

A buddy of mine (who is a PhD economist) posted the following on Facebook yesterday:

"TransCanada stock price drops all of .79% on the news.

The market knows this pipe will get built."

I suspect he's onto something.

Gino said...

i already said to somebody that obama didnt kill the pipeline. he just raised the asking price.

when the checks clear the right accounts, it will happen.

Gino said...

and it will happen in time for him to take credit before this november.

Mr. D said...

Brian,

Could be. The question is whether or not the Canadians will appreciate the jerking around.

Gino,

You're probably right, but in the meantime the work is delayed a year for no good reason. The main takeaway I had from the video is that the Canadians (well, at least some of them) understand what 's going on and aren't necessarily happy to play along. And the costs on that score aren't just financial.

Gino said...

"delayed for no good reason"
lol

politics is the only good reason for anything where govt is concerned.

there will be more jerking around, and obama will add it to his package of october surprises... claiming he fought hard and it took this long to guarantee protection of the environment while bringing jobs and energy to the economy. win-win.

in the meantime, senators and congressmen will keep shaking that money tree...

K-Rod said...

Chicago politics as usual.

Bike Bubba said...

So comforting to see that we're all basically assuming things will get done when the right bribes are paid. Then we'll start to discuss how character doesn't matter in a politician.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Obama's true ally is Venezuela. Also perhaps he's cut a deal with the Chinese so they get the Canadian Oil. They get the oil, and we get to keep printing money to pay them off. Viva La causa, Viva La revolucion, Viva Citgo!

David said...

Are we bestfriends with China now?