Obama's Rejection of Pipeline Will Cost Jobs (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | The Obama administration has rejected the permit application for the 1,700-mile, $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline that would connect Canadian tar sands to oil refineries in Texas.

According to ABC News, Barack Obama blamed the rejection on the "rushed and arbitrary" deadline that was set by Congress. According to that deadline -- written into the legislation that extended the payroll tax cut in December -- Obama had 60 days to either approve the pipeline project or inform the public as to why it was not in the nation's best interest to do so.

I don't agree that Obama can blame this on Congress. I think this is entirely his deal and it's one that is going to come back to haunt him when the November election comes around. In a country that sorely needs jobs, this is no time to be patently rejecting the opportunity for thousands of jobs that this pipeline could provide. No one is asking to build it willy-nilly, Mr. Obama. No one is asking that we just forget any sort of environmental regulations and slap the thing down without care.

Interestingly, on the same day as the administration rejected the Keystone Pipeline, a press release was offered by the White House stating that energy independence has been a clear priority of the Obama Administration since day one. How so?

The press release cites significant progress being made to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources, to develop new industry incentives and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil overall. There's even a boast of the first oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the oil spill. It seems I remember this administration going to great legal lengths to keep production from going on in the gulf with a moratorium. Seems I remember lawsuits, as well, over oil and gas leases, where the lease was accepted but work was prevented from being done via a tangle of environmental demands and bureaucratic red tape. Those things happened on Obama's watch and the jobs that were lost from them also happened on his watch. So, too, will the jobs lost from his Keystone decision.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120119/pl_ac/10852713_obamas_rejection_of_pipeline_will_cost_jobs

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