With Congressional Republicans setting an arbitrary deadline to the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that will run from Canada to the refineries in Texas, Obama has rejected the proposal as it does not allow for adequate time to review the proposal fully.
Explaining his reasons for denying a permit, a statement released by the President revealed, “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.”
While environmentalists have welcomed the news, the administration has clearly cited its reasons for the denial being the routing of the pipeline that passes through Nebraska’s Sandhills, and which might affect the quality of water in the area and the lives of American people.
However, this decision isn’t permanent as TransOcean will be able to apply for a permit again once they are able to come up with an alternate route as opposed to the one that goes through Nebraska. According to White House officials, the tight timeline for approval set by Republicans was so that the ‘review process would short-circuited’, and was the reason why it was rejected by the President.
Experts reveal that this decision of his might hurt his reelection chances. However, nothing can be further from the truth as regular people don’t really care about the outcome as much as environmentalists do, and probably will do little harm.
Conversely, it seems as if the independents, which is a large section of voters in 2012, might actually warm up to Obama’s stance on this issue.
