Obama and the Unions

Looks like the relationship might be cooling a bit -- from the Labor Union Report:

Obama Kills 20,000 Keystone XL Jobs, Laborers� Union Vows Not To Forget Betrayal
After months of playing political ping-pong with 20,000 potential (mostly union) jobs, the Obama administration decided on Wednesday to kill the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

According to a State Department release [emphasis added]:

Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest. The President concurred with the Department�s recommendation, which was predicated on the fact that the Department does not have sufficient time to obtain the information necessary to assess whether the project, in its current state, is in the national interest.

Since 2008, the Department has been conducting a transparent, thorough, and rigorous review of TransCanada�s permit application for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project�

For more than three years, the State Department has conducted its �transparent, thorough, and rigorous review.� However, apparently, the Obama Administration believed that three years wasn�t enough to be transparent, thorough, or rigorous enough.

As Forbes� Christopher Helman noted in November:

In the process of selecting the proposed route, TransCanada plotted and studied 14 different pipeline paths and submitted 10,000 pages of environmental studies. They�ve already studied this thing to death.

What�s worse is the fact that Obama�s purely ideological decision does not serve the national interest at all. In fact, since China will be the likely recipient of the Canadian oil, in addition to the destruction of possible jobs, Obama�s decision harm�not help�the nation�s interests.

More at the site including a wonderful rant from Laborers� union president, Terry O�Sullivan, this quote from Samuel Gompers:

Socialism has no place in the hearts of those who would secure the fight for freedom and preserve democracy.
-Samuel Gompers, American Federation of Labor, 1918

And this comment:

Obama and his Administration caved in to the Eco-Greenies & CREDO; these groups are ecstatic that Canada�s Keystone XL Pipeline product will now be sold to and burned by China and India, where these countries have such a sterling environmental track record and environmental controls�. Oh wait� Did the Eco-Greens and Enviro-Nazis NOT take this into consideration!? Do they seriously expect Canada will just sit on this natural resource?! So Obama and his Administration, bowing to these enviro-idiots, managed to be dumb three times over: stop creation of American jobs; prevent potential hard-industrial growth in the US; AND lose any control over emissions/pollutants when these fuels are burned outside our shores.
Does the President, let alone the eco-wackies � ever think these things through? I swear, you have to work hard to be this stoopid.

Obama's big base is the labor unions -- he bailed out a bunch of them and they returned the favor with campaign contributions. It is not like pipelines are anything new or scary -- your home has water coming to it through a pipeline, your sewage leaves through a pipeline. Just as computer technology gets way better and cooler, all technology follows the same growth pattern so a new pipeline will be way better and cooler than a 20 year old one. Less prone to problems, having a gentler footprint on the earth and better management and monitoring. Why are we stabbing ourselves in the back here. What really gets me is that if we buy Canada's oil, we will burn it with modern engines with decent pollution controls. If we do not buy Canada's oil, they will sell it to the Chinese who have zero pollution controls and their air drifts over the Pacific Ocean and hits us. Like the commenter said:

I swear, you have to work hard to be this stoopid

.