Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined yesterday’s White House press briefing so they could kick it off with questions about President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy.
One reporter asked whether impediments could be removed so that the Keystone XL pipeline could happen on Obama’s watch.
“The president never reached a judgment on the merits because it didn’t come here,” Salazar said. “It was at the State Department and they never reached a judgment on the merits.”
The proposal was at the State Department, which needed to give approval because of its Canadian border crossing, when Obama said in a January statement that Keystone was dead.
“The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment,” Obama said. “As a result, the secretary of state has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.”
The White House has since taken to heaping blame on House Republicans, saying last month Obama “welcomes” news that TransCanada, the company behind the squashed Keystone XL project, is proceeding with work on the southern leg of the pipeline and will reapply for the Canada-Nebraska section permit.
The timing of the announcement came as the administration was coming under increasing heat for rapidly rising energy prices.
“You had a Republican governor who I know who was very opposed to the initial configuration of that pipeline, and we’re still waiting to receive the application on the new pipeline,” Salazar added. “And so I think if people were to put politics aside, what they would say is TransCanada should come forward, put its proposed pipeline out on the table, and then have the process engaged so that it can be formally evaluated and a decision can be made on the merits.”
Too bad the MSM already reported the truth. Oops!
Something here about Salazar and lying sacks of bat guano…
he shut it down. everybody saw it. msm actually reported it.
his energy guy explained why we needed hgher gas prices. we saw that too.
he then lobbied congressmen (personally) to kill it.
now it is hurting him, so, republicans are responsible for stopping it?
are Americans really that stupid mr. president,
or does stupid rest its head elsewhere?
sometimes alinski’s tactics don’t work, huh?
There is one person who could allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline tomorrow — or even tonight. That person is Barack Obama, not the Secretary of State or the Speaker of the House or anyone else.
We need additional natural gas pipelines, too. And a way to get cheaper Canadian and North Dakota crude to the refineries on the East Coast which are shutting down because they must buy more-expensive imported crude.
It’s amusing to hear this stuff from Salazar in particular. The XL pipeline would move Canadian oil sands crude to refineries in Texas. A decade ago, this large supply of oil did not exist. Salazar was governor of Colorado, and Colorado has the world’s largest known reserves of shale oil. The Colorado shale oil situation is similar to the oil sands in Canada. In the very near future, these massive Colorado shale oil reserves will become economically viable to extract. Given the rapid advancement of fracking technologies, it could realistically happen in just a few years. Having a major pipeline already in place to transport this shale oil to Texas refineries would quickly make Colorado the richest state in the nation, for decades to come. It would make Alaska pale in comparison. Not only would there be no state taxes in Colorado, each resident would likely receive a big royalty check each year.
If I lived in Colorado, and I saw that Salazar and Obama were actively preventing my state from becoming extremely wealthy from oil sales, I’d be seriously ticked-off.
Exactly. See my post, below.
Everybody knows Bush killed the Keystone XL Pipeline
Salazar,
Do NOT return to Colorado. Ever.