President Obama laid the blame squarely on Republicans’ “arbitrary deadline” for the rejection of an application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline which would bring crude oil from the Canadian tar sands in Alberta to the Gulf Coast.
Although Obama left the door open on the $7 billion project, he said it was the “rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans” which prevented a proper assessment of the pipeline’s impact in terms of health and safety on Americans and on the environment.
“This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil.”
Republicans reacted swiftly to the denial of the application with House Speaker John Boehner charging that Obama was destroying jobs.
“President Obama is destroying tens of thousands of American jobs and shipping American energy security to the Chinese,” said Boehner, slate.com reports. “The president is selling out American jobs for politics.”
Noting that domestic oil and natural gas production is up while imports of foreign oil are down, Obama said over the coming month, efforts would continue on finding new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase America’s energy security, including the “potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico.”
