On Keystone Rejection Anniversary, Only China is Celebrating

Three Months Ago Today, President Obama Vetoed American-Made Energy as Political Payback for Left-Wing Donors 

• Today marks three months since President Obama rejected approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and its shovel-ready jobs as political payback for his donor base, bringing the total delay on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to more than three years.
• The thousands of jobs to be created by the Keystone XL pipeline aren’t waiting for Obama to change his mind, and Canada is now actively looking to China as it seeks new energy partners.
• President Obama’s decision to reject shovel-ready Keystone jobs and increase access to American-made energy is all the more baffling given that unemployment levels and gas prices both remain sky-high. Yet Democrats are commemorating the three-month anniversary of their Keystone rejection by doubling down on more failed ideas that will neither create jobs nor lower gas prices.

Today marks three months since President Obama rejected approval of the Keystone XL pipeline and its shovel-ready jobs as political payback for his donor base, bringing the total delay on construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to more than three years:

THREE MONTHS AGO TODAY, PRESIDENT OBAMA FIRST REJECTED THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE: (Aamer Madhani and Susan Davis, “Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline from Canada to Texas,” USA Today, 1/18/2012)  

KEYSTONE DEVELOPER SPENT 3.5 YEARS AND AT LEAST $1.9 BILLION WAITING FOR THE DEMOCRATS’ KEYSTONE APPROVAL: “The administration seems to think that it can use environmental claptrap to convince the American public that it is behaving ethically and legally in denying the TransCanada permit, even after the company has spent $1.9 billion over 40 months carefully adhering to the federal regulatory process. And a lot of Americans will not have the time or inclination to get into the weeds on this issue.” (Mary Anastasia O’Grady, “Obama’s Keystone Delay Flouts the Law,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/6/2012)  

INSTEAD, OBAMA REJECTED KEYSTONE AND FLOATED A RECONSIDERATION AFTER THE 2012 ELECTIONS, MAKING TOTAL KEYSTONE DELAY MORE THAN FOUR YEARS: (Aamer Madhani and Susan Davis, “Obama Rejects Keystone Pipeline from Canada to Texas,” USA Today, 1/18/2012)  

OBAMA ACTIVELY “LOBBIED DEMOCRATS” TO BLOCK KEYSTONE APPROVAL, DEFERRING TO RADICAL INTEREST-GROUPS: “Obama lobbied Democrats earlier this month to block a GOP bid to force approval of the Keystone project, which environmentalists have rallied against.” (Dina Cappiello, “Obama to Fast-Track Oil Pipeline, Other Projects,” Associated Press, 3/21/2012)

OBAMA MADE PERSONAL PHONE CALLS TO DEMS TO BLOCK KEYSTONE, NEVER MIND THE JOBS AT STAKE: “The White House lobbying effort, including phone calls from the president to Democrats, signals that the vote could be close when it heads to the floor Thursday. The president is trying to defeat an amendment that would give election-year fodder to his Republican critics who have accused him of blocking a job-creating energy project at a time of high gas prices.” (Manu Raju, “Obama Lobbying Dems Over Keystone XL Pipeline,” Politico, 3/7/2012)

GREEN GROUPS THREATENED TO ABANDON OBAMA IF HE APPROVED KEYSTONE: “Environmental groups have been protesting the pipeline that would run from Alberta oil sands to Texas refineries, and there have been rumblings that greens would abandon Obama next fall if he approved it.” (Dan Berman and Darren Goode, “Obama Punts Keystone XL Pipeline,” Politico, 11/10/2011) 

The thousands of jobs to be created by the Keystone XL pipeline aren’t waiting for Obama to change his mind, and Canada is now actively looking to China as it seeks new energy partners:

20,000: THE NUMBER OF SHOVEL-READY JOBS FROM KEYSTONE PIPELINE BLOCKED BY OBAMA: (Editorial, “Keystone Cop-Out,” The Wall Street Journal, 11/11/2011)

130,000 JOBS: THE LONG-TERM JOBS IMPACT OF THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE, ALSO BLOCKED BY OBAMA: “Many of those 20,000 jobs on the construction of the pipeline would have been filled by skilled union members. Eventually, the completed pipeline was expected to result in as many as 130,000 jobs, many of them on the upper Texas Coast, where the heavy oil would be refined into 700,000 barrels of oil daily.” (Editorial, “Keystone Pipeline is the Wrong Call,” The Houston Chronicle, 11/11/2011)

NATIONAL JOURNAL ANALYSIS: “U.S. ECONOMY MISSED OUT ON CREATING UP TO A QUARTER-MILLION JOBS” IN 2011 BECAUSE IT “LACKED [ENERGY] INFRASTRUCTURE”: “The U.S. economy missed out on creating up to a quarter-million jobs this year because it lacked the infrastructure to capitalize on a rare divergence in global oil prices, a National Journal analysis shows.” (Jim Tankersley, “A Crude Hit to the Recovery,” National Journal, 11/29/2011) 

CANADA ACCELERATING EFFORT TO SEND ENERGY JOBS TO CHINA INSTEAD:

“CANADA LOOKS TO BYPASS U.S. FOR ASIA”: (Edward Welsch, “With $5 Billion Pipeline Project, Canada Looks to Bypass U.S. For Asia,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/12/2012) 

CANADA “ACCELERATED” EFFORT TO BUILD ENERGY RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA AFTER OBAMA’S KEYSTONE REJECTION: “Canadian government officials, meanwhile, have boosted support for westward-flowing pipelines in order to diversify toward Asian markets. That effort accelerated after the White House earlier this year rejected a big pipeline-expansion project, TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL, which would have sent more Alberta crude south of the border. … Mr. Harper and other Canadian officials have said they want to open up new markets for Canada’s resources in China and Asia, instead of relying on the U.S. as its biggest buyer.” (Edward Welsch, “With $5 Billion Pipeline Project, Canada Looks to Bypass U.S. For Asia,” The Wall Street Journal, 4/12/2012)

CANADA HAD WARNED IT WOULD TURN TO CHINA FOR OIL EXPORTS AFTER OBAMA’S KEYSTONE DECISION: (Theophilis Arigitis and Jeremy Loon, “Obama Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Focus on China,” Bloomberg, 1/19/2012)

President Obama’s decision to reject shovel-ready Keystone jobs and increase access to American-made energy is all the more baffling given that unemployment levels and gas prices both remain sky-high. Yet Democrats are commemorating the three-month anniversary of their Keystone rejection by doubling down on more failed ideas that will neither create jobs nor lower gas prices:

ASTRONOMICAL GAS PRICES AND SKY-HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT:

GAS PRICES HOVERING NEAR $4, AT $3.904/GALLON: (“AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report,” AAA, Accessed 4/12/2012)

OBAMA STIMULUS PROJECTION SAID UNEMPLOYMENT AT 5.8% NOW:“Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 5.8% today.” (James Pethokoukis, “The Big March Jobs Miss—and Why the Real Unemployment Rate Sure Ain’t 8.2%,” American Enterprise Institute, 4/6/2012) 

IN FACT, UNEMPLOYMENT IS AT 8.2%: (“Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4/6/2012)

“THE MARCH JOBS REPORT EXTENDS THE LONGEST-STREAK OF 8%+ UNEMPLOYMENT SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION”: (Tweet from James Pethokoukis, The American, 4/6/2012)

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE SAYS UNEMPLOYMENT WILL RETURN TO 5.3%, BUT NOT UNTIL 2021: (Annalyn Censky, “Unemployment Rate: How Low Can It Go?”, CNN Money, 4/4/2012)

ECONOMISTS AT GOLDMAN SACHS: NEW NORMAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE MAY  BE “6% AT BEST”: (Annalyn Censky, “Unemployment Rate: How Low Can It Go?”,CNN Money, 4/4/2012)

BUT DEMOCRATS ARE USING GIMMICKRY TO DISTRACT FROM THEIR ANTI-ENERGY AGENDA:

OBAMA’S BLAMING “SPECULATORS” SEEN AS “MORE POLITICAL THAN PRACTICAL”: (Coral Davenport, “Obama Push on Oil Markets Seen as More Political than Practical,” National Journal, 4/17/2012)

GOVERNMENT TASK FORCE SAID PRICE INCREASES “LARGELY DUE TO FUNDAMENTAL SUPPLY AND DEMAND FACTORS,” “DOES NOT SUPPORT” IDEA THAT SPECULATION HAS “DRIVEN CHANGES IN OIL PRICES”: “The Task Force’s preliminary assessment is that current oil prices and the increase in oil prices between January 2003 and June 2008 are largely due to fundamental supply and demand factors. While these increases broadly coincided with the run-up in crude oil prices, the Task Force’s preliminary analysis to date does not support the proposition that speculative activity has systematically driven changes in oil prices.” (“Interim Report on Crude Oil,” Interagency Task Force on Commodity Markets, July 2008)

VAST MAJORITY OF FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION’S INVESTIGATIONS FOUND “MARKET FACTORS” RESPONSIBLE FOR GAS PRICE CHANGES: “The vast majority of the FTC’s investigations have revealed market factors to be the primary drivers of both prices increases and price spikes.” (“Gasoline Price Changes: The Dynamic of Supply, Demand and Competition,” Federal Trade Commission, 2005)

A CRS REPORT SAID OBAMA’S PLANS MAY ACTUALLY INCREASE GAS PRICES: “Last year, a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service that was getting renewed attention on Thursday concluded that Obama’s oil and gas proposals ‘may have the effect of decreasing exploration, development, and production, while increasing prices and increasing the nation’s foreign oil dependence.’ It also said such an impact would likely be on ‘a small scale.’ ” (Ken Thomas and Kasie Hunt, “Obama Demands Congress End Oil, Gas Subsidies,” Associated Press, 3/1/2012)