ericgrimsrud

Powerful political forces now seem to be aligned for passage of the Keystone XL Pipeline. A study by the US State Department inexplicably concluded that the KXL pipeline would not cause additional CO2 to be emitted into the atmosphere. The Supreme Court of Nebraska has decided not to block the pipeline in that state. And most importantly, both houses of congress have now passed resolutions for its construction and have urged President Obama to sign off on it. That bill will be on the President’s desk in a few days.

I am sure that President Obama will not sign it, however, for several very good reasons.

First, unlike so many of our politicians of both parties, President Obama has considerable respect for the field of science and its understanding of the forces of nature. He knows that the level of CO2 in our atmosphere is already much too high and that we already have way too much of the cleaner forms of fossil fuel, that is, gas and oil, waiting to be used. The dirtier forms of fossil fuels simply must be left in the ground. In a previous post on this blog (November 2014), I explained these points in greater detail.

Another reason is that the power of the veto was intentionally put into our governing system for very good reasons and other presidents have used it often- much more than Obama has. This weapon of the Executive Branch is perhaps the major reason why we fuss so much over presidential elections. In the last two presidential elections, Obama received a great deal support from environmentally conscientious citizens and relatively little from the fossil fuel industries. So he is not likely to now go against those who helped put him into his office and, instead, do the bidding of those whose stated number one goal in their “service” to the public was simply to ensure that the man who was fairly elected in the 2008 presidential election would not win another. Because of this near-treasonous behavior of the GOP for the past six years, President Obama owes the present majority of both houses absolutely nothing.

In desperation, the GOP is now trying to label President Obama an “obstructionist”. Considering how the GOP has endeavored to obstruct every move the President has made, their use of this term against Obama is downright laughable and is sure to be dismissed by President Obama. Let’s just recognize the powers granted to our Legislators and the President by our Constitution. The former individuals each have one vote in their respective houses and the latter has the veto power of any legislation that reaches his office. The label “obstructionist” has no meaning in this case. It is the President’s right and obligation to use his vote power as he chooses to.

And then there is that ever-present cry for the “jobs, jobs, jobs” that will supposedly be created by the construction of this pipeline. In fact, the KXL would provide about 4,000 jobs but only for two years and a negligible number thereafter (unless one includes the jobs that will be related to the cleanup of subsequent spills along its 1,200 mile length through the heartland of America). These numbers of jobs pale in significance relative to the approximately 900,000 jobs that were lost in 2011 by the big cuts in federal spending that Republicans extracted by threatening to push America into default. THe number of pipeline jobs are also tiny relative to the number of jobs that would be created if we began to attend to the dire needs of our country’s aging infrastructure. Yet we don’t hear the GOP crying “jobs, jobs, jobs,” when those issues are on the table. No, the Keystone XL Pipeline is not about jobs, it is about paying back the fossil fuel companies for their generous donations to the elections of our exiting set of legislators. About 87% of fossil fuel donations in recent years have gone to the GOP and they are now obliged to return those favors. We are most fortunate, therefore, that our sitting President got to his present position without the help of the fossil fuel corporations and owes them nothing.

And one more thought: the Republicans have been trying to get President Obama to admit that the USA is presently in an all out “war” against “radical Islam”. If that is true, then why would the Republicans also want to provide the terrorists of the world with such an easy, juicy target as the KXL pipeline would be? Just a few Ryder trucks loaded with kerosene-soaked ammonium nitrate fertilizer would plow up any sections of it selected by suicide bombers whenever they wished to do so. What a grand mess that would make! I don’t believe the KXL plan is to encase the pipeline with some sort of magic shield. Therefore, it appears that the US government would have the impossible and exceedingly expensive task of guarding this 1,200 mile long, 3-foot diameter tube containing a highly flammable and toxic liquid, 24/7, every day going forward. All of the terrorists in the world must be rooting for the GOP on this one. So while our President may not be as adept as the GOP at launching meaningless labels at our potential enemies, he is evidently much more aware than the GOP of our future need to minimize the exposure of our infrastructure to potential terrorists.

For all of the above reasons, I am sure that President Obama will do the right thing – that is, veto the Keystone XL pipeline bill that will soon be placed on his desk. In the words on Nancy Reagan, whose husband vetoed about 35 bills during his presidency, it is a very good thing that our President will simply say “no” to this conduit of harmful and addictive substances. You will be able to knock me over with a feather if I am wrong, but I think and, of course, hope it’s a done deal. The next challenge will be to ensure that some lackey of Big Fossil Fuels is not elected President in 2016.