Obama's veto hurt the Democrats and Hillary in the blue collar counties of the formerly Democratic states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin
President Trump Signs "Complete No Brainer" Exec Order--Reviving Keystone XL Pipeline
Remember in 2011 when former Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly told a New York reporter after speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, that U.S. approval of the Keystone oil pipeline was a "complete no brainer". Harper was right then as Trump is right now for pushing forward on this oil pipeline once again.
At the time, Harper knew that Americans and their government only acted in pursuit of their own national interests.
President Trump did not invent "America First". Trump is just publicly reflecting what has always been America's national philosophy since its founding.
Accordingly, Harper wisely argued that it was to America's national interest to approve the construction of an oil pipeline from the Alberta oil sands across the U. S. border to the U.S. Gulf Coast refinery hub- pipeline of which would transport approximately 700,000 barrels per day of Alberta oil.
Interestingly, the U.S. State Department under the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed with Harper and the Canadian government for the following reasons:
Firstly, the construction of such a pipeline would create approximately 42,000 construction and related U.S. spinoff jobs during the life of the project.
Secondly, the same State Department believed it was to America's national security interest to be supplied safe and secure oil from a loyal, friendly and stable democratic country, Canada, than for America to be economically dependent upon such unstable and unfriendly, anti-American countries as Venezuela or unpredictable Middle East Arab countries. We boomers still remember the oil shocks of the 1970s when the Middle East OPEC nations arbitrarily boosted oil prices and sent the American and Canadian economies into decline, practically overnight.
Thirdly, the U. S. State Department concluded that such a pipeline would not materially increase greenhouse gas emissions, because alternately transporting such oil by rail or by trucks was actually worse for the environment and potentially more dangerous and unsafe.
As a result of the estimated creation of 42,000 new construction and related jobs, six different traditionally Democratic unions threw their support behind this Keystone project- followed by numerous Democratic Congressmen and Senators who did not want to alienate their blue collar base, especially before the 2012 presidential and Congressional/Senate elections.
Recall that this $8 billion dollar oil pipeline infrastructure project was fully and privately funded. Potentially 42,000 new jobs would be created without the American government having to spend hard-earned American taxpayer dollars to create or subsidize these jobs!
For this reason and the above reasons, in 2011, Obama should have agreed to proceed with the Keystone pipeline.
He should have pulled the trigger on this pipeline.
I believe that Obama failed to so before the 2012 election, because Obama was primarily concerned about his being re-elected as president for a second term. To accomplish this feat, Obama needed to retain his coalition of blue collar working class Democrats in the midwest and his anti-pipeline leftist wealthy eco activists on the two coasts. So Obama punted on a decision until he was once again safely re-elected in 2012.
In January 2015, when Obama no longer cared about being elected by the American people, he vetoed the Keystone pipeline.
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At that time, six months before Trump announced his candidacy, I had published an article in the Canada Free Press entitled, "Obama's Veto of the Keystone Pipeline Paves the Way to a Populist Republican Presidency. "
Obama's veto hurt the Democrats and Hillary in the blue collar counties of the formerly Democratic states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump won those states barely in 2016. He wants to win those states "bigly" in 2020.
That is why- in addition to the above reasons cited- restarting and moving forward on the Keystone pipeline for Trump is a "complete no brainer."
Mitch Wolfe, a graduate of Harvard University, is the author of “Trump: How He Captured The Trump White House”, which he wrote and had published prior to the election. (available on Amazon.com)
