XDA

The New York Times, here, has praise for President Obama's monstrously stupid idea to kill the Keystone XL pipeline (quelle suprise!) as does well know energy expert Robert Redford here. The gist of the NYT opinion piece is that there hasn't been enough time to prepare a through environmental study. We wouldn't want to be hasty with a decision this important.

What?

The Canadian company building the pipeline (and it will be built--where is the only remaining question) proposed it February 9, 2005. The longer extension was proposed in 2008. The average time it takes to get a permit for a gas or oil pipeline like this is 20 months. We're over 40 months for the extension, nearly 84 months for the first part of the pipeline (which was actually built in Canada). How much time do we need? There already is an EIS from the State Department. Do we need 2 of them?

Nothing built by man is perfectly safe but pipelines are the safest, most efficient way to transport oil and gas there are. There are tens of thousands of miles of pipelines already in America and many along the general route the Keystone XL should be proceeding. Their environmental impact is none to minimal.

Here's the rationalization for the President's singular inability to lead from the NYT:

The extraction and production of tar sands oil in the fields of northern Alberta would also cause far more greenhouse gas emissions than drilling for conventional crude.

Ah, we're saving the planet by foregoing Canadian tar sand oil. How freakin' noble. But, of course this is merely Warmie propaganda. The effect on world temperature of this decision is nothing as China will take the oil and use it if we don't. Indeed, the world is proving to be very resistant to CO2 warming no matter what the simple computer programs say.

It gets worse:

Far more important to the nation’s energy and environmental future is the development of renewable and alternative energy sources. This is the winning case that Mr. Obama should make to voters in rejecting the Republicans’ craven indulgence of Big Oil.

I see, supporting the creation of American jobs is "craven". Caving in to the elitist environmental hysterics is bold leadership. Of course. In lefty logic, if we don't develop our real and available sources of energy, we'll have to develop very expensive and intermittent at best alternative energy, if we can. But at least we prevented American corporations from providing us with reasonably priced energy with the finished product produced by working Americans. That'll teach Big Oil a lesson it will not soon forget.

Besides, who would want a large, stable supply of oil, through the safest method possible, from a friendly neighbor when we can get much more expensive oil through more hazardous methods of transport from distant foreign nations who hate us and who cut off the supply from time to time? I mean the decision makes itself.

Mr. Redford writes:

President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us.

His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for people from throughout the pipeline path and all across America who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time.

Nightmarish, environmental disaster? Please.

I, for one, am getting a little sick of rich people, who will obtain their extravagant energy needs with nary a ripple in their bank accounts, pretending to protect the planet by making gasoline, et al., more expensive for the bulk of Americans for whom paying more for necessary energy means they actually have to give up something else. I think the self-righteous pretending is the toughest thing to stomach.

Make better movies, Bob, yours lately have been pretty unwatchable; and leave energy policy to non-hysterical types who actually know something. Energy is essential to civilization. We will obtain and use all the fossil fuels there are and when they are gone, we'll move on to the more expensive types whose time has not yet come. That's an inconvenient fact that makes this celebration by liberals of an extreme and cynical political decision ring a little hollow.

Labels: No Energy Economy; Keystone XL; Robert Redford