Obama's Ridiculous Gamble

Ex-ambassador calls U.S. pipeline delay 'catastrophic'

"The U.S. decision to delay approval of the Keystone XL pipeline is a "catastrophic" cop-out by the Obama administration, former U.S. ambassador to Canada David Wilkins said Friday."

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"“This route has been studied and studied and studied," he said. "It’s the longest permitting process in the history of the world, I think. It sends a bad message that we’re not open for business.”

Wilkins was ambassador to Canada during the Republican administration of former president George W. Bush.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Friday that the delay may kill project and could add momentum to efforts to open up the Asian market for Canadian oil."

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"TransCanada said in a statement Thursday it remained confident Keystone XL would ultimately be approved.

"If Keystone XL dies," CEO Russ Girling said, "Americans will still wake up the next morning and continue to import 10 million barrels of oil from repressive nations, without the benefit of thousands of jobs and long-term energy security. That would be a tragedy.""

It won't kill it. It could be the end of The One's hopes of re-election, though (I sincerely hope). Obama has pissed off a whole bunch of Canadians, and likely a whole bunch of Americans who were anticipating with bated breath the economic shot in the arm that the pipeline promised. Not too smart, Obama.

In the meantime, there's a pipeline to the West coast to build. Better get busy.