GOP To Obama: No More Climate Excuses On Keystone Pipeline

by JASmius

Whatever other multifaceted points of fault Tea Partiers imagine they have with elected Republicans, this can't be one of them:

Republicans on Friday demanded that President Barack Obama approve the long-stalled Keystone XL Pipeline after a State Department report found that the $5.4 billion project's impact on climate change would be minimal.

"President Obama is out of excuses," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "The fact that he has let a final decision on the Keystone pipeline project — and the more than 100,000 jobs that come with it — languish for more than five years is economic malpractice.

"Middle-class families and small businesses continue to struggle in this economy, and the president's refusal to back this job-creating project is hurting our economy," the Ohio Republican said. "If President Obama wants to make this a 'year of action,' he will stand up to the extreme left in his own party, stand with the overwhelming majority of American people, and approve this critical project."

In the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the State Department's report "once again confirms that there is no reason for the White House to continue stalling construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline."

"So, Mr. President, no more stalling — no more excuses," added McConnell, who represents Kentucky. "Please pick up that pen you've been talking so much about and make this happen. Americans need these jobs."

Here, here.  Indeed.  About time.  I'm JASmius, and I approve this message.  Doesn't sound like the urgings of "closet commies" to me.

Of course, relentlessly practical sort that I am, I have to pose the same question to the Speaker and the Minority Leader that I frequently toss at Tea Partiers when they impotently issue demands without the power to back them up: How?  Barack Obama doesn't need excuses.  In point of cold, brutal fact, he doesn't have to do anything.  He never has.  Just take no action and the Keystone XL pipeline remains unapproved and will never be built.  Seeing as he has all the power and the GOP has zero leverage on him, that will remain that.

Which isn't to say that Boehner and McConnell aren't aware of that, or are seeking to bulldoze The One directly.  Part of it is the ongoing GOP civil war.  Another is doubtless to move jeopardized "red" state Democrats up for re-election this November to put pressure on the White House to sign off on the pipeline in order to save their own keisters and Donk Senate control along with it.  With the loss of as many as a dozen seats a distinct possibility, and a unified Republican Congress meaning he could no longer hide behind Harry Reid and would have to actually start working for a living by keeping America weak, poor, imperiled, and enslaved himself, that could constitute some measure of indirect leverage.

Except it won't, because just as when he told his then-jeopardized House majority in the 2010 cycle, "Don't worry, you've got me," he doesn't see that massacre coming because the very possibility simply will not occur to him.  His cosmic ego simply does not permit him the necessary level of imagination.  And even if it did, he wouldn't care, because as he declared Tuesday night in his Domination Proclamation, he's now ruling by Executive decree, so what does he care who controls a lawmaking body that no longer has lawmaking power?

To O, looking down from the proverbial On High, Boehner and McConnell and Reid and Pelosi and all the rest are like a huge litter of puppies, barking and yapping and yipping, their little skulls grindable beneath his heel whenever he takes the notion.  And Us, The People?  Ants.  Gnats.  Maggots.  Dust mites.  "RAID?!?" anyone?

But at least Boehner's and McConnell's hearts are in the right place.  Even if Tea Partiers don't give them the credit for it.

Incidentally, the attributed excuse-eliminator - the aforequoted State Department environmental impact report - isn't quite the excuse-eliminator that it would be under ordinary circumstances:

In its final technical review, the State Department found the Canada-to-U.S. oil pipeline would not greatly increase carbon emissions because the oil sands in Alberta would be developed anyway, a department official said on Friday.

Which means that the Regime will start leaning on Canada - relations with whom they've already pretty much ruined - to shut down energy development of those self-same Alberta oil sands, all the better for the ChiComms to effectively conquer Western Canada.

The White House said late on Friday that a decision on the pipeline will come only after a careful review of  the study as well as other comments and information.

"A decision on whether the project is in the national interest will be made only after careful consideration of the (State Department environment impact study) and other pertinent information, comments from the public, and views of other agency heads," said Matt Lehrich, a White House spokesman.

"The Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement includes a range of estimates of the project's climate impacts, and that information will now need to be closely evaluated by Secretary (of State John) Kerry and other relevant agency heads in the weeks ahead," Lehrich said.

Which is to say, never.

But at least this GOP gesture keeps the energy issue alive for a while longer.  It isn't much, but it is a candle that enables us to see while we curse the darkness.  Until the Regime outlaws wax, anyway.