Why Is Barack Obama against the Keystone Pipeline Extension?

US energy costs are on the rise yet President Obama remains unconvinced about an extension to the Keystone pipeline that will supposedly reduce energy prices and create jobs. Currently running from Alberta’s Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin to refineries in Illinois and Texas, the extension would see the infrastructure lengthened to connect Canada and Nebraska.

For more information on the background of this topic, take a look at: What Is the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline?

Scepticism from the White House

While some experts claim that the pipeline will help combat rising energy costs and boost the national economy Obama has expressed serious uncertainty. Instead, he believes that it will have minimal impact on high energy prices, create very few new jobs for American workers and have a negative impact on climate change.   

The president came out and delivered his concerns at an end-of-year press conference that challenged the Republicans view that the pipeline is a ‘magic formula’ for rapid economic growth. When accused by the press of minimising the benefits of the extension proposal, Obama responded, “At issue in Keystone is not American oil; it is Canadian oil that is drawn out of tar sands in Canada. That oil currently is being shipped out through rail or trucks, and 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 down to the Gulf.”

Clashing political opinions

He also publically announced his belief that the extension would offer Americans very little relief on rising energy prices, despite what the public may believe. “Sometimes the way this gets sold is, you know, ‘Let’s get this oil, and it’s going to come here,’ and the implication is that that’s going to lower gas prices here in the United States. It’s not.”

Obama also addressed all other claims that his opposition to the pipeline is unjust. US oil producers maintaining that the pipeline would support business were met with the explanation that while it would benefit Canadian oil companies it would not help the US industry or its consumers. The president also counteracted Republican claims that the pipeline would create more jobs, insisting that the employment potential of a pipeline extension had been seriously ‘hyped.’ “The construction of the pipeline itself will create probably a couple thousand jobs. Those are temporary jobs,” he stated.

Combating climate change

Another key issue driving Obama to oppose the Keystone pipeline extension is a concern about the negative impact it would have on climate change. As well as accelerating global warming Obama also highlighted the consequences for the American population, listing floods, wildfires, droughts and hurricanes as serious climate change costs that come with a sky high price tag.  This sentiment comes in the wake of major climate change targets the nation recently developed with China. 

“I want to make sure that if in fact this project goes forward, that it’s not adding to the problem of climate change, which I think is very serious and does impose serious costs on the American people, some of them long term,” he explained at the press conference.

For more information on this debate, read: The Pros & Cons of the Keystone XL Oil Pipeline.