EDITORIAL: More Keystone stonewalling from president

The Keystone XL pipeline appears dead for the duration of Barack Obama’s presidency. After dancing around the topic and delaying any sort of action on the project for years, the president provided a concrete position during his year-end White House news conference on Dec. 19, saying that Keystone XL would provide “not even a nominal benefit” to U.S. consumers.

“There’s been this tendency to really hype this thing as some magic formula to what ails the U.S. economy, and it’s hard to see on paper where exactly they’re getting that information from,” Mr. Obama said.

As if the United States has no need for jobs and trade.

As this editorial page has explained time and time again, Keystone XL would send more than 800,000 barrels of crude each day from Canada across the Midwest to American refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project would require hundreds of miles of steel pipe, create thousands of construction and supply-chain jobs and generate $3.4 billion in economic activity. Labor unions support the project for the jobs it will create, and many Democrats — who generally favor renewable energy over oil production — want to see it built, as well.

Incredibly, the president suggested there was a greater need for government-funded infrastructure improvements and the jobs that come with them. There is no question that America’s highway and transportation systems require investment — upgrades that were supposed to be funded by the 2009 “stimulus” bill, but weren’t. Unlike the infrastructure projects he favors, Keystone XL won’t cost American taxpayers anything. It’s 100 percent funded by the private sector.

The Keystone XL project has been vetted to the hilt, but it’s hung up because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canadian border. That makes it an international project subject to State Department and White House approval.

You’d think Keystone would be the first oil pipeline ever constructed. When asked by reporters how he would react if the incoming Republican Congress passed a bill to authorize the construction of Keystone XL, President Obama replied, “I’ll see what they do.” The president didn’t specifically say he would veto a Keystone bill, but he offered harsh criticism of the project. He mocked the “couple thousand temporary jobs” that would be created during the pipeline’s construction, even though highway- and bridge-construction jobs are temporary, as well.

“Keystone is not American oil. It is Canadian oil,” he said. “It would save Canadian oil companies and the Canadian oil industry an enormous amount of money if they could simply pipe it all the way through the United States to the the Gulf.”

What a slap to the United States’ largest goods trading partner. Never mind that Keystone would move oil from North Dakota and Montana as well. Helping the Canadian economy grow helps the American economy grow. And the development of North American oil has reduced the continent’s dependence on imported resources and reduced the retail cost of gasoline. The president is alienating our neighbor and one of our most important allies. Add Keystone to his list of foreign policy failures.

The Keystone XL pipeline will be revisited when Congress convenes in January. Lawmakers must get a bill on the president’s desk as soon as possible. It will have bipartisan support. And if he vetoes it, the Democratic myth that Republicans are obstructionists with no agenda would blow up, and Democratic obstructionism would instantly become a 2016 campaign issue.

Build the pipeline already.