Washington, DC - After years of debate and study and an "all clear" from the State Department, a bill giving the go-ahead for construction of the final leg of the Keystone Pipeline was put on President Obama's desk and he promptly vetoed the measure.
"He promised a veto and, unlike the promises he made about Obamacare, he kept this one," noted Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.
Weber said that although it wasn't surprising, "the veto doesn't make sense unless the president is worried that he might offend fat-cat liberal donors. What other reason would he have to be so dismissive, so quickly? After all, transporting crude oil via pipeline is far less environmentally hazardous than moving the stuff by rail."
The AMAC chief said pipeline leakage is a concern and should be addressed, but railroad tank car oil spills create both immediate and long-term problems and they can be incredibly deadly. Just a few weeks ago a train derailed in West Virginia and 100 tankers filled with some three million gallons of crude oil exploded producing what one reporter called 'an atomic-looking fireball.' No one was killed in that spill, but an oil train derailment in Quebec in 2013 resulted in 47 deaths."
Weber said the estimates are that oil train traffic in North America has surged by 4,000 percent over the last five years and that it will continue to grow at a steady pace in the coming years. "And that poses a clear and present danger to the people who live along those train routes because accidents and more spillage and destruction is bound to increase at a similar rate."
The environmentalists say they are worried about carbon emissions if we make the transportation of crude oil easier, "but whether the oil is being moved by rail or pipeline and whether it is being moved over here or over there, the same amount of carbon will be released into the atmosphere. So, why not make the safer choice," he added.
But, the president admittedly has a "green agenda" and that makes the choice not so clear cut for him since an okay for the Keystone Pipeline would make it look like he is giving in to the energy lobby and giving up on his liberal base, Weber explained. "Perhaps he doesn't want to tick off billionaires like George Soros, Tom Steyer and Steven Spielberg - to name just a few of the mega-rich liberals with progressive aims who provide the funding for his party's election campaigns."
