So much for President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy — and the idea that Democrats are the “party of science.”
And jobs? Forget those, too.
All that went out the window Friday when Obama, after years of dithering, finally nixed the Keystone XL pipeline that would have transported oil from Canada down to Gulf Coast refineries.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who made the official call, admitted it was pure politics.
“This decision could not be made solely on the numbers,” he said. “The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves. Denying the Keystone XL pipeline is one of those tough choices — but it is the right decision, for America and the world.”
Not that killing Keystone actually does squat about climate change: The oil will just go by rail and sea instead — at higher cost, and with greater risk of spills. That’s why State’s environmental review gave the project a clean bill of health.
But green superstition holds that anything connected to oil (or coal, or even natural gas) is evil. And Obama clearly buys it.
Never mind that he ticked off labor by killing 9,000 construction jobs.
“Obama today demonstrated that he cares more about kowtowing to green-collar elitists than he does about creating desperately needed, family-supporting, blue-collar jobs,” said Terry O’Sullivan of the Laborers’ International Union of North America.
That anger is plainly why Obama held off the ax for so long. But, in his final months in office, he no longer cares.
Worse is ahead.
Next up: defying Congress, the law and the public by clearing the final dozens of terrorists out of Guantanamo Bay and shutting Gitmo down — handing the whole base over to the Castros, if he can.