Obama – Not Hillary Clinton – Will Decide Keystone XL Pipeline Fate

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
on

In a clear sign that President Obama recognizes that Hillary Clinton is too compromised by conflict of interest given the web of crony tar sands lobbyists around her to make the decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, Obama announced today that he will make the call personally. ย And some of his comments in an interview this afternoon indicate that he has serious reservations about the Keystone XL and the thought of the U.S. making a long-term commitment to Canada’s filthy tar sands oil.ย 


Obama made the announcement about taking personal responsibility for the Keystone XL decision during an interview with Nebraska’s KETV NewsWatch 7. ย Interviewer Rob McCartney asked, โ€œhow do you weigh any potential negative impact with the jobs that it may bring in?โ€ย 
ย 
PoliticoPro has the transcript of the President’s remarks, excerpted hereย (and corrected in a few spots):

โ€œThe State Department’s in charge of analyzing this, because there’s a pipeline coming in from Canada,โ€ Obama told KETVโ€™s Rob McCartney in the White House. โ€œThey’ll be giving me a report over the next several months, and, you know, my general attitude is, what is best for the American people? Whatโ€™s best for our economy both short term and long term? But also, what’s best for the health of the American people? Because we donโ€™t want, for example, aquifers that are adversely affected, folks in Nebraska obviously would be directly impacted, and so we want to make sure that weโ€™re taking the long view on these issues.

โ€œWe need to encourage domesticย natural gas and oil production. We need to make sure that we have energy security and arenโ€™t just relying on Middle East sources. But thereโ€™s a way of doing that and still making sure that the health and safety of the American people and folks in Nebraska are protected, and thatโ€™s how Iโ€™ll be measuring theseย recommendations when they come to me.โ€
Obama gave more hints that he’s not buying the idea that the industry’s โ€œjobsโ€ argument is worth the trade-off of polluted water and public health impacts. ย 

More from the must-watch KETV interview with President Obama:

โ€œI think folks in Nebraska like all across the country arenโ€™t going to say to themselves, โ€˜Weโ€™ll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health or if rich land thatโ€™s so important to agriculture in Nebraska ends up being adversely affected,โ€™โ€ Obama said, adding, โ€œbecause those create jobs, and you know,ย when somebody gets sick thatโ€™s a cost that the society has to bear as well. So these are all things that you have to take a look at when you make these decisions.โ€

Update:ย Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica had the following response to President Obamaโ€™s remarks:

โ€œThis appears to be major and welcome news. The State Departmentโ€™s pipeline review has been hopelessly corrupted. President Obama taking the reins would mean we once again have a shot at a fair process. If the scope and severity of the threats posed by the pipeline are accurately understood, it will be obvious to President Obama that the costs far outweigh the benefits and that he must reject it.โ€

Stay tuned, there will surely be more developments on this news, especially in the lead up to Tar Sands Action returning to the White House on November 6th.

In the meantime, here are a couple of my favorite Barack Obama quotes, one from the campaign and one from last year. Let’s hope the President lives up to these words and rejects the Keystone XL pipeline:

โ€œBecause after one president in the pocket of the oil companies โ€“ we canโ€™t afford another. For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time.โ€ – Barack Obama, Youngstown, Ohio, August 5, 2008
ย 
โ€œThe next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century. ย We are not going to move backwards. ย We are going to move forward.โ€
– President Barack Obama, June 2, 2010ย 

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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