As he did with his probably illegal “recess” appointments, President Obama picked a politically advantageous time to cancel the Keystone pipeline project — while the media is obsessed with the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich’s second wife, and Mitt Romney’s investments. Yet it is hard to remember a presidential decision that had as many negatives as this one:
a) Jobs in tough times? Anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 high-paying jobs were lost. These were shovel-ready and private-sector, and they would have led to the real creation of wealth — the antithesis of Solyndra. How strange — we pay tens of millions of dollars for a few hundred subsidized, money-losing jobs, while passing over thousands of money-making ones.
b) National security? While we ratchet up the pressure on Iran, as gas prices climb, and as our subsidized wind/solar alternatives fizzle, we hope that, in extremis, the Saudis can reroute their exports through the Red Sea. How strange — we cancel our own pipeline while expecting others will never do the same.
c) Environment? If the Keystone project raises environmental issues, then every other comparable one would too. It is not as if the route bisects Yosemite on its way to Big Sur. How strange — we assume that the Saudis or the Turks can build pipelines across their own lands without environmental problems, but that we, the apparently less technologically advanced, cannot. We hear that oil is “fungible”; if so, each barrel that we pass on, someone else less green won’t.
d) Financial solvency? We are now almost $16 trillion in debt, and we import over $500 billion in fossil fuels per year. The more energy we produce, or the more cheaply we can import it, or the more our export dollars stay in North America, where they can be easily rerouted into the U.S. economy, the less we, the near-insolvent, must borrow. How strange — we keep passing on projects that would increase gas and oil production and availability and earn us money, but not on wind and solar counterparts that produce little energy and lots of debt.
e) Symbolism? President Obama and his supporters recently have talked of “big” ideas and projects, as if our generation fears to gamble on a Hoover Dam or man-to-the-moon project. Yet the president passed on the one chance that he’s had in his presidency to match reality with his empty rhetoric. How strange — our elites expect unstable regimes overseas to provide us with oil (Air Force One and Warren Buffett’s jet are not powered by solar panels), and to risk their own environments to do so, and for others to lend us the money to pay for our imported oil, and for the world to insulate itself from the blackmail of oil-exporting monstrosities like Iran, but we ourselves will do little of what we advocate or expect for others.
A footnote: This administration has a bad habit of taking credit for things that either occur despite its opposition or are entirely irrelevant to it. Thus it is now bragging that gas and oil production is up since 2009; this is, of course, not because the Obama administration has tabled thousands of leases offshore, in the Gulf, in the West, and Alaska, but because, as yet, it has not cancelled hydraulic fracking, a private-sector breakthrough that is bringing all sorts of unexpected wealth to the U.S. in the brief window before a dubious Obama administration decides what to do about it.
— Victor Davis Hanson is Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His latest book is The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.
Remember that one of VP Biden's first votes as a new Senator back in the day was against approval of the Alaska Pipeline.
Is anyone surprised by this recurring theme?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFor pushback on these talking points, see Matt Yglesias
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and
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In particular, it's 20,000 "person years" (spread over two years) rather than 20,000 jobs.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePushing back on talking points with different talking points... Which just boils down to whose talking points you prefer, and which commentator has the most credibility with you.
For me, Matt Yglesias has zero credibility, while VDH has a full tank. So I'm inclined to trust Mr. Hanson's analysis far more than Mr. Yglesias'. If it's the opposite for you, fine, no skin off my nose.
It's just interesting to note that suddenly we're hearing all these reasons why the Keystone Pipeline is a Bad Idea. None of which were mentioned even in passing by the the President when he killed it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis oil that we could have been buying from an Canada, we will now have to make up by buying from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and probably Brazil. That's why Obama bowed to the Saudi King and is such palsy-walsy with Chavez. He also guaranteed $4 bln in loans to Brazil to develop their offshore fields. Somehow, I suspect, George Soros is involved in all of this. Obama and the Democrat Party are corrupt.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhere you see losses he sees wins:
A) Jobs Lost = More Government Dependency. Private Sector jobs never created means more Americans can be employed by the government, or just receive checks and food stamps if they can't find a nice public union job that recycles a percentage of their pay back into the party of Government.
B) National Security = Why would Obama, whose administration has been doing everything in it's power to install Islamist Revolutionary Regimes across MENA, want to reduce their ability to raise funds (oil money) or to throttle our economy with threats to our energy supplies?
C) Environment = Like a Watermelon, Environmentalists are Green on the outside, but Red to the core. America with less energy means America with less Capitalism, and that's a good thing to the Left.
D) Financial Solvency = Why would Obama want to stop financing the People's Liberation Army in Red China with our debt service?
E) Symbolism = If it's bad for America, then it's good in Obama's eyes. A weaker, less solvent, more dependent America is a symbol for a bright Red future!
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseReality check:
1) The number of jobs that will be created is in the low thousands, 90% temporary.
2) The gunk coming out of the ground in Canada can't be made into either gas or diesel suitable for use in North America. It has to be exported to countries with terrible emission standards. In other words, it does nothing for our energy independence.
3) Port Arthur, the southern terminus of the pipeline, is in a "special enterprise zone" which means that its output can be exported tax free.
4) Why send it all the way to Texas instead of building a new refinery in Canada? Because the old refineries in Texas have been grandfathered into out-of-date lax environmental regulations - whereas a new refinery would have to been compliant with modern standards.
Add it all up, and what do you get? The Republican party demanding that the government use its powers of eminent domain to force this pipeline on private landowners in seven states, with the lasting benefits of the project going only to big oil. In short, Keystone is an abomination, which the Republicans are supporting only because of Obama derangement. Seeing the supposed party of "limited government" backing this monstrosity is proof positive the GOP leadership has completely lost its mind and that the right-wing media has had its thought processes hopelessly disconnected from the reality-based community.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat you're saying is that this is not an economic, profitable, endeavor.
Bull. No one puts up this kind of money (unless it is government subsidized like Solyndra fiascos) if it doesn't pencil out...for a long time.
Nice try. Now explain how pouring government money into PROVEN uneconomic ventures "works".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAu contraire. I'm sure that the corporations behind it have calculated that it will be extremely profitable for them. Of course those calculations include:
*using the government's power of eminent domain to force through the chosen route, thereby relieving them of the bother of negotiating with private landowners
*exporting the product tax-free
*belching pollution in two countries with impunity
*reliance on clever corporate vehicles that can disappear into bankruptcy after the Oglalla is hopelessly spoiled forever
If they had to actually contend with these costs, rather than passing them onto the public, no way does this boondoggle make money.
It is big government crony capitalism at its worst, and if the Obama Administration HAD approved the project, you can bet that this is exactly the tune you'd all be singing now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's be honest, you would never, under any circumstances, be for this pipeline, or any other expansion of the use of petroleum.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI keep hearing about how the Oglalla aquifer is going to be despoiled by building this pipeline. Are you claiming that there is nothing currently built on that aquifer? No buildings? No gas stations? No other pipelines of any kind?
Oh, and how does this pipeline "belch[] pollution"?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sorry, but do you and the Think Progress people you're parrotting actually have any idea whatsoever what a foreign trade zone actually is and why they're setup in the first place?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAu contraire. I'm sure that the corporations behind it have calculated that it will be extremely profitable for them. Of course those calculations include:
*using the government's power of eminent domain to force through the chosen route, thereby relieving them of the bother of negotiating with private landowners
*exporting the product tax-free
*belching pollution in two countries with impunity
*reliance on clever corporate vehicles that can disappear into bankruptcy after the Oglalla is hopelessly spoiled forever
If they had to actually contend with these costs, rather than passing them onto the public, no way does this boondoggle make money.
It is big government crony capitalism at its worst, and if the Obama Administration HAD approved the project, you can bet that this is exactly the tune you'd all be singing now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"Reality check:"
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Thank you for confirming that the modern left are uninformed, gullible, and never hesistate to rush to the Internet to make fools of themselves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"1) The number of jobs that will be created is in the low thousands, 90% temporary."
- And, of course, there is no need to add thousands of jobs, temporary or not, right?
"2) The gunk coming out of the ground in Canada can't be made into either gas or diesel suitable for use in North America. It has to be exported to countries with terrible emission standards. In other words, it does nothing for our energy independence."
- Of course, adding millions of barrels to the world's supply will do absolutely nothing to lower costs, right? Independence notwithstanding, this will increase the supply available, which should lower costs. While I understand leftists are working ferverntly to artifically increase the cost of oil, the lower costs would benefit everyone without an ideological bent.
"3) Port Arthur, the southern terminus of the pipeline, is in a "special enterprise zone" which means that its output can be exported tax free."
- Is that sales tax, or income taxes? If it is a sales tax issue, then that is LOCAL (either city, county, or state - NOT federal). However, the company refining the oil will be paying income taxes. The company selling the oil will be paying income taxes, etc.
"4) Why send it all the way to Texas instead of building a new refinery in Canada? Because the old refineries in Texas have been grandfathered into out-of-date lax environmental regulations - whereas a new refinery would have to been compliant with modern standards."
- To translate: Due to leftist enviro nuts making building of new refineries cost-prohibitive, it is actually less expensive to build and maintain thousands of miles of pipeline than it is to simply build a new refinery. In other words, leftist enviro nuts have done their jobs, through excessive legislation, to increase the cost of building a refinery beyond the value of the end product.
In summation, your points are:
1. Thousands of jobs are not important.
2. Adding millions of barrels of oil to global supplies, thereby bringing down prices, is meaningless.
3. The local government isn't taxing this site to death, just to line the pockets of more government beauracrats and give away to key voting blocks as bribes.
4. Leftists have intentionally made building a new refinery cost prohibitive for the purposes refining oil, so oil companies should just suck it up and stop all production leftists don't like.
Your recipe is the perfect path for killing job growth (direct Keystone jobs, as well as jobs lost due to spikes in oil prices - affects transportation, food prices, airline prices, shipping prices), increasing oil cost volatility (therefore, cost of doing business in almost any sector of product development or production and distribution), increasing taxes, and giving the leftist enviro nuts greater control over energy production.
That is all well and good...unless you care about people, their ability to make money for their families, and the economy at large. Aside from those small issues, you may be onto something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn summation, your points are:
1. Thousands of jobs are not important.
The reality is these temporary jobs won't even move the needle on our unemployment figures. They are not that important in light of the eminent domain issues and the importance of the Ogallala Aquifer to Nebraska and the Midwest.
2. Adding millions of barrels of oil to global supplies, thereby bringing down prices, is meaningless.
This gas would find other ways of getting out of Canada. The net add is zero.
In fact, none of this oil is destined for the US. All this is, is diverting Canadian oil destined for Europe and elsewhere and instead of leaving Canada, it goes thru the US and then leaves. This changes the equation not a bit in terms of our dependency on Middle East oil.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhoa, nice lies. Did you make them up yourself?
First off, the phase I and II pipeline is already moving oil to the national reserves, so I guess we are stockpiling oil we can't use? The Keystone XL will allow more oil to flow and extend the destination to the GOMEX refineries, giving them a steady feed stock.
Did you know if they have fog in the Houston Ship channel for a week, the price of gas goes up a dime? If the tankers can't enter, the feedstock runs out quick.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a feedstock that didn't depend on tankers playing Texas Chicken transiting the Houston Ship channel?
Let's assume your number 3 is accurate, well the employees pay taxes, the suppliers pay taxes, the contractors pay taxes and I seriously doubt you can export petroleum products from the US without any tariffs at all being imposed.
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"How strange — we assume that the Saudis or the Turks can build pipelines across their own lands without environmental problems...."
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThat might be because a lot of that Saudi land is flippin' desert! Not pretty stuff with cacti and cute foxes and kangaroo rats, but totally lifeless barren sand and rock. Even the desert rattlers look at it and say, "Ain't no way, Jose! I won't live out there!"
It's another pipeline. Why is this pipeline so special to the Greens? Allow me: It taps a significant additional source of oil. The Greens already put the kibosh on refining oil sand oil in northern Indiana. Rationale being only that it added mercury and ammonia (biologically degradable) in dilute lower concentrations than those already naturally flowing into Lake Michigan. Their point is to stop carbon, stop it now and stop it regardless of need or consequence.
Thanks to Victor for at least noticing and writing a farily comprehensive appraisal. If there are any points that may not be directly applicable to this pipeline, those points are still completely applicable to the overall effort to kill carbon and the motivation for opposing this particular pipeline. Meanwhile, they're just getting started on fracking while Obama's EPA puts the finishing touches on coal with plans that won't be detailed until after the election (Obama wants coal reduced to half the CO2 which effectively renders even new, improved plants economically unworkable).
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo fully appreciate what is going on one I believe one has to read the Dept. of State’s “Mission Statement” as signed and issued by Clinton in 2010. One of the core missions is to “Stimulate market forces for transformational policies in alternative energy, electricity, development and reconstruction.” This is followed by the comment: “Traditional sources like oil and gas continue to be essential but all countries must promote responsible use and diversification of those supplies.”
Given that Keystone is not (i) alternate energy and (ii) does not diversify supplies it does not meet the “policy” requirements as established by Clinton in 2010 when she took over the Dept. of State. IMHO, there is strong case to be made that this is a Dept. of State (Clinton) Policy Decision nothing more nothing less.
What is going on at the moment in WDC is a furthering of the Dems political agenda and zero to do with the environment or the welfare of the US. To the contrary, future energy prices will be forced up to the point that so called Green projects can compete with conventional sources energy. It is called market manipulation.
Now is that a good thing for the US, or not?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo fully appreciate what is going on one I believe one has to read the Dept. of State’s “Mission Statement” as signed and issued by Clinton in 2010. One of the core missions is to “Stimulate market forces for transformational policies in alternative energy, electricity, development and reconstruction.” This is followed by the comment: “Traditional sources like oil and gas continue to be essential but all countries must promote responsible use and diversification of those supplies.”
Given that Keystone is not (i) alternate energy and (ii) does not diversify supplies it does not meet the “policy” requirements as established by Clinton in 2010 when she took over the Dept. of State. IMHO, there is strong case to be made that this is a Dept. of State (Clinton) Policy Decision nothing more nothing less.
What is going on at the moment in WDC is a furthering of the Dems political agenda and zero to do with the environment or the welfare of the US. To the contrary, future energy prices will be forced up to the point that so called Green projects can compete with conventional sources energy. It is called market manipulation rather than wealth and job creation. And these people work for whom?
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