Obama Isn't Looking for a Reason to Support Keystone, but to Oppose It

The news stories are filled with anticipation: The U.S. State Department has confirmed, yet again, there would be no appreciable negative environmental impact from approving the Keystone XL pipeline. Would that finding, journalists want to know, persuade President Obama to finally approve Keystone XL construction?
 
The short answer is that Obama is looking for a reason to reject the Keystone XL, not approve it, and so the State Department paper is an obstacle, not a help.
 
Had Obama wanted to approve the Keystone XL, he could have embraced State’s earlier reports, which came to the same conclusion, and pointed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2010 comment that she was inclined to sign off on construction. He hasn’t done that.
 
If Obama really wanted to approve the Keystone XL, he could have easily pointed out that the proposal is only the fourth and final phase of the Keystone pipeline system. Phase 1 was completed three years ago and pumps nearly 600,000 barrels daily of the same Alberta tar sands oil to refineries in Illinois (the president’ s home state), after crossing several Canadian provinces and U.S. states.   
 
In other words, we have been doing what environmentalists say will destroy the environment for three years with no problems.
 
If Obama wanted to approve the XL he could have pointed out that much of that oil is already coming to the U.S. by rail, which has created its own problems.
 
Or he could have mentioned that while most of the high-paying jobs to build the XL are temporary, infrastructure jobs are always temporary—and that he has been pushing government-financed infrastructure jobs for five years. And here is a major infrastructure project that wouldn’t cost the government a dime.
 
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday the president is trying “to insulate the process from politics.”  Anyone who believes that probably believes that if they like their health insurance policy they can keep it.
 
The president postponed the Keystone decision past the 2012 election because of politics and now wants to stall past the 2014 election when several Senate Democrats are vulnerable. It’s time for him to decide—and suffer the political consequences of his own making.