Ed Morrissey
HotAir.com
12/21/2011
Canada has patiently waited for Americans to help themselves improve our energy policy by installing a pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to our refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, but this week Prime Minister Stephen Harper signaled that their patience has limits. Speaking to CTV, Harper reminded the US that they have a very thirsty China as a potential customer, too:
Canada could sell its oil to China and other overseas markets with or without approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In a year-end television interview, Harper indicated he had doubts the $7-billion pipeline would receive political approval from U.S. President Barack Obama, and that Canada should be looking outside the United States for markets.
“I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that,” Harper said in the Monday interview with CTV National News.
Harper’s comments were released a day after the White House sent signals it might kill TransCanada’s oil sands pipeline if it is forced to make a decision on the project in 60 days, saying there wasn’t sufficient time to complete a new environmental review.
Clearly, Harper isn’t enamored with Barack Obama’s stalling on the Keystone XL pipeline. Kelly McParland got the same impression, and writes at the National Post that Harper kept it friendly but made no mistake about playing political and economic hardball if Obama continues to stall…
The article continues at HotAir.com
H/T Instapundit where the comments, as always, are also worth reading, including:
Prof. Stephen Clark writes:
In all seriousness, Obama’s punting on Keystone is inexplicable. Does the White House really think that a decision in favor of the pipeline would be that politically damaging – when they can wrap a favorable decision in a jobs creation agenda while pointing to a map like the one you linked to yesterday? As inexplicable as that is, for the life of me, I can’t understand why Republicans – especially presidential candidates – aren’t hammering Obama every single day on this issue.If it were me, I might take a page from Cato the Elder and conclude every speech, no matter what the topic, with the sentence, “Furthermore, I think Keystone should be approved”. It might have an effect similar to that which Cato’s apothegm had on Carthage.
Update: Keystone XL Pipeline: Economics, Idealism and Politics
