Special Interests Against the Keystone XL Pipeline: A Selection
It's official—the Obama Administration is refusing to allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast to proceed. As the State Department press release states:
Today, the Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest.
And a bevy of special interests are flooding my inbox with congratulatory emails. Below is a selection of comments from them:
Friends of the Earth: We Won on Keystone XL!
I wish I could jump out of your computer screen and give you a giant hug right now.
I can't do that — but I do hope you will join me in giving President Obama the giant collective hug of thanks that he deserves for saying no to the Keystone XL and to more dirty, climate-wrecking tar sands oil.
The press release is signed "in Soldarity" by Kim Hyunh, who is chief FOE anti-Keystone XL campaigner.
Credo Mobile: Keystone Project Dead, But Not Buried
"It's a victory that the pressure of activists forced the president to stand up and reject naked political threats from the oil industry," said Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile.
Energy Action Coalition Executive Director, Maura Cowley:
"President Obama's decision to stand up to Big Oil and reject the Keystone XL pipeline, despite the bullying of Big Oil, shows a strong commitment to stand with young people fighting for a clean and just energy future."
President of American Rivers, Wm. Robert Irvin:
"I applaud the President's decision to reject the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Big Oil and their allies in Congress were pushing to force approval of the pipeline without adequate scientific review and for political gain. We should never put politics ahead of clean water for Americans."
Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen's Energy Program:
"Fortunately, the president has taken a stand against the oil industry and its paid campaign of lies about jobs and energy security. This is the president's opportunity to start to end the tyranny of oil and start moving toward a new energy economy that protects the climate, creates jobs and respects the health of our families."
Finally, there was this forlorn email from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President Edwin D. Hill:
"We believe that the decision-making process has been caught up in political gamesmanship. To those Democrats who oppose the pipeline on well-meaning but misguided environmental grounds and those Republicans who routinely vote against every jobs bill except Keystone, we pose this question: What are your plans to replace the 20,000 jobs that are now on hold?"
At moments like these one does well to keep firmly in mind satirist Ambrose Bierce's definition of politics:
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.