As foreseen, President Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline bill, which proposed a pipeline which would carry over 800,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada to the US along Nebraska to the coast. The oil would be delivered to various refineries and ports. The debate over this pipeline has been ongoing since 2009. Obama rejected this bill on the grounds that the bill superseded the State Department's role in determining if the trans-national pipeline would be in the country's interest to have. Republicans, furious at the rejection, promise to incorporate a plan for the pipeline in another bill that Obama will not veto, as they believe that the addition of the pipeline is an opportunity to create jobs.
While the argument for an increase in jobs is valid, the whole picture has to be taken into consideration. The State Department should be able to do its job and determine the pipeline's place in our national economy. The issue of oil resources has, in the past, been a touchy and volatile subject, so it would be necessary to also look at how this would look to our other oil supplying friends. Additionally, I don't think that Republicans targeting Obama by saying that they will make sure to get this passed is a bad choice after the recent back-and-forth bills and cases between the president and Congress.
Questions:
Is this pipeline a good idea or not, and for what reasons?
How could this further affect the relationship between Obama and Republicans?
Comments on the veto?
1 comment:
To take an environmental stance, I think Obama made the right choice in vetoing the Keystone XL bill. I may be just an environmental hippie but the damage the pipeline would make on the immediate environment is very costly. First, the oil extracted from the Alberta oil sands is an unconventional energy source that requires far more resources to extract than conventional oil and gas, thus producing a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Once the practice of extracting unconventional oil starts (since there is a LOT of unconventional oil in the ground), there's no telling how far people will go in corrupting the environment for a bit more gas. While the State Department released a statement concluding that the pipeline is unlikely to significantly increase the rate of carbon pollution, the Tar Sands are still the second biggest sink of carbon in the world. Carbon sinks absorb the carbon dioxide from our atmosphere, and they are vital in keeping the carbon cycling and not destroying our ozone. So, even if the affect of pipeline won't directly increase carbon pollution too much, the removal of the carbon sink will.
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