From outside the US, a sudden rush to approve the Keystone XL pipeline must be puzzling. Isn't this the project not acted upon for 6 years and counting?
That a Democrat, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, leads the approval charge in the Senate explains everything. She's struggling to hold her seat in a Dec. 6 runoff vote against Rep. Bill Cassidy, a Republican.
Most Louisianans understand that the controversial pipeline would benefit their state, on the Gulf Coast of which work large refineries configured especially to run heavy crude. If allowed to cross the border, Keystone XL would link those refineries with vast, durable supplies of Canadian bitumen.
The border crossing, though, requires approval by an Executive Branch endlessly studying the environmental ramifications, and the ramifications of the ramifications, and whatever else it can find to study in order to defer a decision.
Landrieu can't wait. Behind in the polls, she has called for a vote on an approval bill introduced by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) but never allowed to advance while Democrats controlled the Senate, which they will cease to do come January. She hopes her support for Keystone XL will demonstrate independence from diminishingly popular President Barack Obama.
The House on Nov. 14 passed an identical bill sponsored by Cassidy, who wryly observed, "It is easy to wonder if the Senate is only considering this because of politics."
That's precisely what it's doing, of course. The pipeline vote is a lifeline from outgoing Senate leaders hoping not to lose another seat to Republicans.
This won't matter. The betting here is that Obama will veto the bill, saying the question needs yet more study.
The real reason will be that approving Keystone XL would alienate the noisy minority of activists whom Obama has been loath to disappoint and into whose warm embrace he surely hopes to enfold himself after his presidency ends.
For everyone else-for people who favor jobs and affordable energy-Obama has not been so accommodating.
(From the subscription area of www.ogj.com, posted on Nov 14, 2014; author's e-mail: [email protected])
