Heartland Institute Experts React to Keystone XL Pipeline Vote in Congress

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday voted to take approval of the Keystone XL pipeline out of the hands of the White House. The pipeline would bring petroleum from the oil sands of Alberta, Canada to the United States, eventually ending at the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental activists oppose the pipeline, and the Obama administration has delayed its decision on the fate of the project. 
The following statements from energy and environment experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000.

“The House vote illustrates how the Obama administration has for years dragged its feet in approving a no-brainer project to benefit Americans. What plausible reason can there be to prevent our close friend Canada from supplying us with abundant, affordable fuel? Radical, anti-energy extremism dominates the Obama administration like no other administration in American history.”
 
James M. Taylor
Senior Fellow for Environmental Policy
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]

“The House bill is a step in the right direction, assuring the United States of lower-cost and more-secure
oil supplies, reducing imports from overseas. A more fundamental House action, much to be desired, would be an amendment to the Clean Air Act stating that carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) are not to be treated as ‘criteria pollutants’ under the law.”
 
S. Fred Singer
Senior Fellow, Environment
The Heartland Institute
Director/Founder
Science and Environmental Policy Project
[email protected]

“President Obama’s handling – or mishandling – of the Keystone pipeline is symbolic of his overall mode of operation: reward your friends, punish your enemies. While heaping nearly $100 billion on green energy projects that benefit his buddies, his administration has done everything it can to suppress development of effective, efficient, and
economical energy. The Keystone pipeline is not a single problem with a single solution, it is a symptom of an epidemic at the White House. After numerous studies, more than 1700 days of delays, and widespread support, it should be approved and needs to move forward. The Northern Route Approval Act is laudable as it keeps the pressure on the president and the pipeline in the public’s vision.”
 
Marita Noon
Executive Director
Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy
[email protected]

“President Obama’s resistance to the implementation of the Keystone XL pipeline is emblematic of his administration’s efforts to thwart the extraction and make more complex the refining of oil anywhere in the United States. In the case of the pipeline, it is a slap in the face of one of the nation’s largest trading partners and longtime allies. The pipeline will not cost American taxpayers a dime, but it will generate thousands of jobs to construct it and others to maintain it.  “If the president wanted to demonstrate his disdain for the economic benefits the pipeline represents and the nation needs, he could not have selected a better way than to stymie the building of the pipeline.”
 
Alan Caruba
Founder, The National Anxiety Center
Policy Advisor, The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
 


The Heartland Institute is a 29-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. To speak to any of our experts, please contact Director of Communications Jim Lakely at [email protected] and 312/377-4000 or (cell) 312/731-9364.