President Heidi Heitkamp Described As "Amazing" Rejects The Keystone Pipeline

On September 19, 2008, TransCanada submitted its first permit to the U.S. State Department to build a pipeline across the American/Canadian border.

It only took 2,605 days – 7 years, one month, and 19 days – for the Obama administration to reject the permit.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Obama’s reason for the rejection is “climate concerns.” And given how broadly climate change alarmists have defined pollution – the very air we exhale is a pollutant, they claim – the “climate concerns” justification can be used to block any activity a given politician has an ideological objection to.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]In terms of North Dakota politics, this is really bad for Heidi Heitkamp…[/mks_pullquote]

Let’s not kid ourselves. This is ideological. Obama and his constituency of left-wing environmentalists hate fossil fuels. So whatever they can do to roadblock the use of fossil fuels they will do.

The idea that blocking the Keystone XL line will somehow reduce the amount of oil used in the world is ridiculous. The oil produced in Canada will find a use. What will happen is that the American market – American refiners employing American workers – will be denied access to the oil.

What’s more, American construction workers will be denied the opportunity to build the pipeline. American oil producers, particularly here in the North Dakota/Montana region, will be denied the opportunity to use the Keystone infrastructure to bring their oil to market. Already refiners are turning away from Bakken oil because shipping that oil via rail is too pricey.

This hurts America. This hurts our friends in Canada. But it fits the President’s political agenda, so who cares about any of that right?

In terms of North Dakota politics, this is really bad for Heidi Heitkamp who once described President Obama as “awesome” before his election in 2008 (in a video state Democrats tried to send down the memory hole). Heitkamp campaigned on getting the Keystone pipeline passed. Her case for election in a state dominated by Republicans was that she’d be a voice for the state’s energy interests in a political party that’s largely hostile to them.

But Heitkamp failed on Keystone, and she hasn’t exactly been moving the ball down the field on lifting the oil export ban either. North Dakota voters have to be wondering why they should continue to support a Senator who not only voted for Obama for President, but was a vote to keep Senator Harry Reid (also not exactly a friend to North Dakota industry) as Majority Leader in her first term.