After years of thinking over the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama has decided that he will reject the application for its completion.
In speaking from the White House along with Secretary of State John Kerry, Obama said, “The pipeline would not have made a serious impact on…the American people’s prospects for the future. [It] would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy.”
This announcement was made after TransCanada requested the Obama administration to delay consideration up until the next President takes office in 2017. It was not surprising that many assumed that this last-minute plea was based on the understanding that Obama was going to reject the application.
Both environmentalists and Democrats in Congress have been applying pressure on Obama to do so. All Democratic primary candidates have opposed the project too. This is also because of low oil prices in recent times not requiring the costly oil from tar sand drilling.
Given this decision, it is clear that Obama wants to position himself as a champion of the environment. It was not long ago that he passed a landmark regulation related to power plants. He also intends to play a leadership role in the conference on climate change due to be held in Paris and that will begin later this month.
Of course, critique regarding the Keystone XL project were many in number. Some activists believed that fossil fuels should be kept under to prevent excess carbon-dioxide emissions which could be more than 3 times the amount from conventional drilling. There was warning about the danger of a potential oil spill by activists too.
So, it wasn’t surprising that activists praised Obama’s decision in believing that this pipeline was in no way in America’s best interests.