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Keystone XL: A Partial Presidential About Face

At the 4% Growth Project, we’ve been closely monitoring the progress, or lack of same, on permitting and building the Keystone XL pipeline...

At the 4% Growth Project, we’ve been closely monitoring the progress, or lack of same, on permitting and building the Keystone XL pipeline (read about it here and here). Last January, President Obama refused to approve the project pending further review of its environmental impacts. In fact, the safety and environmental issues had been studied for several years by state and federal regulatory agencies with no adverse findings. But the President wanted to placate his “green” constituents who were upset by his decision a few weeks earlier to approve new drilling in the Arctic Ocean. Then a few days ago, President Obama did a partial about face. Standing in front of a stack of pipeline sections in Cushing, Oklahoma, he announced he would order the expediting of the southern section of the Keystone XL to connect the Cushing crude oil storage facility to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.  But this may simply have been another exercise in political opportunism in line with Mr. Obama’s recently articulated “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. Yes, building the southern segment of the pipeline may help relieve the bottleneck at Cushing and allow Texas and Louisiana refineries to process domestic crude rather than imports from Venezuela and Mexico. But, presidential approval wasn’t actually required for this leg of the pipeline. Connecting Alberta’s oil sands to the U.S. crude oil distribution network is the critical part of Keystone XL, and this project is still off the table. The President’s newly-found enthusiasm for “Keystone-South” does nothing to enhance America’s long-term energy security or to boost the nation’s economic growth.