Fossil fuel feuding: Democrats, Republicans clash over Keystone XL
WASHINGTON - The merits and perils of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline were back in the spotlight in the U.S. capital on Friday during a congressional hearing that featured plenty of political sniping about job creation between Republicans and Democrats.
"We all want more jobs," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in his opening statement to the hearing by a subcommittee of the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce panel. "And that's why I support, and I think probably all of our witnesses support, the president's jobs program, which is being blocked by the Republicans. Instead, they want to get jobs from areas that benefit some of their best friends, the oil companies particularly."
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) sounded a similar tone, asking why Republicans were refusing to support U.S. President Barack Obama's job-creation proposals while citing the need to create work as the key reason why Keystone XL should be given the green light.
TransCanada president Alex Pourbaix, meantime, assured the hearing of the pipeline's safety thanks to measures the company is taking that exceed American requirements, but added it would be an instant job creator.
"Time is absolutely of the essence," he told the hearing. "We can create jobs immediately and we very much want to get started."
The U.S. State Department stunned pipeline proponents last month when, in the face of outrage by American environmental groups, it announced it was deferring a decision on the $7 billion project for at least another year.
Republicans have cried foul, saying the Obama administration is simply trying to shield the president against any backlash from his liberal base in next November's presidential election. The White House has denied those accusations.
Friday's hearing was held two days after Senate Republicans unveiled a bill aiming to speed up the approval process. The Senate bill would require the State Department to grant a permit to TransCanada to allow the project to move forward within 60 days, unless Obama determines that doing so is not in the national interest of the United States.
House Republicans followed suit on Friday, introducing their own bill that calls on the State Department to act within 30 days to green-light the pipeline. If it doesn't act within a month, Keystone XL would be approved by default.
But they went even further in their attempt to resurrect the pipeline, vowing to attach the bill to payroll tax cut legislation that John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, hopes to pass later this month. That move could paint Obama into a corner given Democrats support extending payroll tax cuts.
At the hearing on Friday, Republicans pilloried the Obama administration for delaying a decision on the project, with the subcommittee's chairman mentioning Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent remarks that Canada will now pursue Asian markets.
"Another lengthy delay could kill the project," Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in his opening statement. "We are not the only country in need of Canada's oil supplies, and our northern neighbour could very well look to other customers around the globe if we continue to stall."
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) called Friday's hearing "a response to broken promises."
The Ogallala aquifer was a particular area of concern for environmentalists since it supplies drinking water to millions on the Great Plains. But following the State Department's announcement that it needed more time to study alternate paths, TransCanada said it was willing to reroute the pipeline around the aquifer.
Fossil fuel feuding: Democrats, Republicans clash over Keystone XL - Winnipeg Free Press