President Bush called for building the Keystone XL pipeline last Thursday during a luncheon with energy executives in Pittsburgh.
“I think the goal of the country ought to be, ‘How do we grow the private sector?’ That ought to be the laser-focus of any administration,” Bush said at the DUG East conference, where he was the luncheon’s keynote speaker. “And therefore, once that’s the goal, an issue like Keystone pipeline becomes a no-brainer.”
“If private-sector growth is the goal and Keystone pipeline creates 20,000 new private-sector jobs, build the damn thing,” the 43rd president said, garnering applause from over 4,000 oil and gas executives in attendance, according to DeSmogBlog.
The Keystone XL pipeline has been a thorn in the side of the Obama administration for some time, pitting the president’s environmental supporters against the need to create jobs. Currently, the pipeline is still unapproved.
This post has been amended since its publishing; George W. Bush was the 43rd President of the United States, not the 41st.