Business
Obama rejects Oil pipeline, blames GOP
President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress are back where they were before Christmas, locked in an election-season tussle over a proposed 1,700-mile oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.
Republicans hope to again force Obama to make a politically risky decision, while he is seeking to put it off until after the November election.
Obama blocked the US$7 billion Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday, at least temporarily, but Republicans signaled their intention to again to force the issue.
Rep. Fred Upton, a Republican from Michigan and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he will call Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who recommended Obama’s rejection, to testify at a hearing as early as next Wednesday. That’s the day after Obama gives his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress.
“This is not the end of the fight. Republicans in Congress will continue to push this because it’s good for our country and it’s good for our economy and it’s good for the American people,” especially those who are out of work, said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Republicans are looking to drive a wedge between Obama and two key Democratic constituencies. Some labor unions support the pipeline as a job creator, while environmentalists fear it could lead to an oil spill disaster.
The plan by Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, through a 1,700-mile pipeline across six U.S. states to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Obama was already on record as saying no, for now, until his administration could review an alternate route that avoided environmentally sensitive areas of Nebraska — a route that still has not been proposed. But in an unrelated tax deal he cut with congressional Republicans, Obama had been boxed into making a decision by February 21.
The deal required that the project would go forward unless Obama declared by that date that it was not in the national interest. The president did just that Wednesday, generating intense reaction from all sides.
