Republicans will revive Keystone Pipeline issue

The Obama administration keep claiming that several years isn't sufficient to give regulatory approval for the pipeline to be built. Even former administration officials have a hard time accepting these arguments. From the Washington Examiner:

President Obama's decision last week to deny a permit for a Canadian pipeline that would run all the way to Texas helped solidify his support among environmental groups. But it pits the president against congressional Republicans who are all but certain to use the Keystone XL pipeline as a bargaining chip in this week's negotiations over extending a payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.

"This is a wonderful talking point for Republicans," said Jerry Taylor, a federal energy and environmental policy scholar with the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "They will argue that the high gasoline prices Americans have been paying are something one can blame on the president. And they will argue that high unemployment rates are due to this."

Neither argument is entirely true, Taylor said, but Republicans can still use them to back Obama into a corner over the pipeline project, which would carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, through a 36-inch pipe to oil refineries along the Gulf Coast. . . .

Among the Democratic lawmakers backing the Keystone project is Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia.

"I want the project to go forward," Rahall told The Examiner. "I think we need it for our energy security and for jobs for America."

The president, Rahall said, "is obviously walking a tightrope here, with the environmental community. Part of it is an anti-fossil fuel attitude." . . .

At least one Democrat Senator who is up for re-election this year says that he is very critical.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the decision was a major setback for the economy, workers "and America's energy independence."

The United States should be buying oil from allies like Canada rather than from nations wanting to harm America, Manchin said.

"Until we are energy independent, it only makes common sense to get our resources from our friends and greatest allies, like Canada," Manchin said. "I respectfully urge the president to reconsider this decision." . . .

Not only is the administration taking forever to make a decision, it seems pretty clear that the risks from oil pipelines are minimal. From Fox News:

While the Obama administration says it needs more time to assess the potential risks surrounding the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a vast underground network of more than 2 million miles of energy pipeline already traverses the United States.

Several energy experts who represent the oil and gas industry say the controversial Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile pipeline that would run from Canada to Texas, poses less of a risk to the environment than the estimated 50,000 miles of crude oil pipelines already crisscrossing the U.S., a network they say is safe and efficient.

The Obama administration on Wednesday blocked a permit for the $7 billion Keystone XL, at least temporarily, claiming a more thorough review is needed to examine problems it may pose to the nations air and water quality. The administration also blamed Republicans for including a provision in a recent tax cut bill that compelled a decision within a 60-day time frame.

The pipeline system, proposed by the Canadian firm TransCanada, would transport crude oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta to multiple locations in the U.S., including as far as the Gulf Coast of Texas. The Keystone XL would go through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma, and the so-called feeder pipelines would connect it to rich oil fields in North Dakota and Montana. . . .

But several energy experts say the Keystone XL would be no different from an extensive network of energy pipelines already in place and some say its state-of-the-art design would make it safer than many of the countrys aging pipelines.

Theres no shortage of energy pipelines, Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, told FoxNews.com. This pipeline would be better than 1.9 million miles of pipeline already in the United States. Its newer and has the best technology. . . .