The scuttling of the XL Pipeline may go down as the largest single train wreck of the Obama administration. With ObamaCare, the trillion dollar stimulus that didn’t stimulate anything but union coffers, and the regulatory state’s various power grabs the competition is stiff, but XL may just be the worst of the lot. The decision keeps our fuel prices artificially high which hurts the economy, it keeps at least 20,000 Americans unemployed, and may permanently alter our relations with Canada, and Canada’s relations with China, while harming our energy security. That’s quite a lot to pack into a vote of “present.”
Canada expects strong interest in its heavy crude oil reserves from China after the U.S. government balked on a major oil pipeline project, the government said.
The U.S. State Department last week said it was reviewing alternate routes for the planned Keystone XL pipeline to avoid environmentally sensitive territory in Nebraska. That decision could move final approval, originally expected at the end of this year, to after the 2012 presidential elections in the United States.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said during a meeting with Asian trading partners in Hawaii that the State Department’s decision highlighted the importance of working closer with the Chinese.
“This does underscore the necessity of Canada making sure that we are able to access Asia markets for our energy products,” he was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying. “And that will be an important priority of our government going forward.”
The Canadian government said a heavy crude oil pipeline would get built to carry oil from tar sands projects in Alberta province one way or the other. The direction of that pipeline would depend on the end consumer.
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