New Keystone XL Delay: 'A Stunning Act Of Political Cowardice'
Forbes | 4/21/2014 | Christopher Helman
Whenever businesses and bureaucrats don’t have the guts to stand behind a decision they’ve made, they release the news late on a Friday. In the case of the Obama administration’s move to delay indefinitely a decision to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline, it speaks volumes that the announcement was made not just on any Friday, but on the convergence of Good Friday and Passover.
Got to be just coincidence, right? The cover story is that another delay in the five-year Keystone saga couldn’t be avoided because of unresolved legal issues over land seizures in Nebraska. Mmm-hmmm.
In what must be in the running for the week’s biggest load of baloney, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said on “Meet The Press” yesterday that “I want to make sure the right decision is arrived at and that the president makes that decision carefully and doesn’t factor politics into his decision, which I don’t think he is.”
TransCanada TRP -3.65%, the company behind the project, is naturally annoyed. CEO Russ Girling said in a statement: “We are extremely disappointed and frustrated with yet another delay,” Girling said. “We are also disappointed the United States will continue to rely on suspect and aggressive foreign leaders for the eight to nine million barrels of oil that is imported every day. A stable, secure supply of oil from Canada and from the U.S. makes better sense and I am sure a majority of Americans agree.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee said Friday that the delay was “nothing short of a stunning act of political cowardice.”
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