Obama's Rejection of Keystone Demonstrates His Laziness- Still Had Over a Month but Unwilling To Do the Work

In July 2008, TransCanada announced a $7 billion expansion to its Keystone pipeline system, calling the project the the Keystone XL project, which would build a 3,200-km pipe linking Alberta’s oil to refineries in Texas. The line is expected to handle 590,000 barrels of oil a day and would take about a year to build. Three years ago the plans were communicated to the State Department, which failed to move quickly and efficiently to implement the plan and bring jobs and energy to our nation (timeline details).

Then the Obama administration came in, and there was a long delay when nothing got done- no work was put into the project, no reviews were done, and nothing happened for several years. Starting in the summer of 2010, Republicans began to put increasing pressure on the State Department and the Obama administration to do approve the pipeline project or begin the approval process or redesign the pipeline or anything- and yet the months go by and nothing more happened.

Then in December of 2011, the Republicans attached to the payroll tax deal a provision that forces President Obama to decide within 60 days whether or not to approve the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The deadline runs out on February 21, 2012- which is in another 35 days or so. President Obama instead decided today to instead reject the proposed pipeline and turn down all the jobs and money and income and cheap oil, blaming Republicans for his rejection, saying that there was now too little time left to review the project and change its proposed route.

Follow this story on memeorandum, and you can see for yourself what really happened here- Obama did not put in the work and time and effort to get it done.

There is still time left to review and change the route- oh, at this point it wouldn't be easy, and it might take a lot of work and time and effort, but there is still over a month to get it done, and an active and hard-working and intelligent President could get a task like this done. There was still time left to review the project in December and change the route- even though Obama said that it would take exactly a year to finish a review process like this meaning he'd be able to make a decision right after the November 2012 election- but at that time, the administration did not accelerate the process and put in the hard work to get the project up and working.

There was time left in the summer of 2010 to do the review process and change the route- and do in the the year time-frame that Obama suggested that it would take. That means it would already be approved and construction begun by now; perhaps it would even be finished and transporting cheap energy from our friend from the north right now, lowering gas prices and helping poor people heat their homes more cheaply during this cold winter. But Obama did not do anything in 2010, except talk and hem and haw, and demonstrated that rather than put in the hard work to square the pipeline project with his supposed environmental concerns, he instead would just dither and do nothing.

President Obama had ample opportunity to act on this project and compromise and build an environmentally safe pipeline that would bring considerable jobs and money and wealth to America while meeting environmental concerns- but he didn't. He spent his time over the last month (December 2011 to January 2012) in fundraisers, on vacation in Hawaii, and campaigning all around the nation. He didn't get the project done- make some phone calls, bring people together, and hammer out an environmentally friendly pipeline project.

The rejection of the Keystone Pipeline XL project demonstrates more so than anything how lazy, incompetent, and unqualified President Obama is for the office of the President of the United States.