O, Canada Is Not Happy, Neither Is This Alphabet Organization

With its neighbor to the South, i.e., US, um, the USA. Yes, our normally even keeled, “Hail fellow well met,” border buddies are not too happy with us. Well, I should place blame where blame is due. They are not happy with Barack Obama.

Join the club.

The fallout from Obama’s Keystone XL pipeline decision is a domino effect. First and foremost, he threw his good, close friend and dictator, Richard Trumka, leader of the AFL/CIO. Oh, yes, if you think Trumka hasn’t been instrumental in setting policy in this country, you would be dead wrong (and h/t to Helenk for this link).

Oh, I am not being hyperbolic here. Richard Trumka speaks to someone at the White House, be it Obama or someone else in his Administration, EVERY DAY. Every single day, the leader of the AFL/CIO has influence in the White House. Still think I am exaggerating? How about this, then – he visits the White House two times a week. That is a whole lot of influence over our policies.

That’s what makes this decision all the more remarkable – the AFL/CIO was very supportive of this project. It would have been built with a lot of union labor.

Uh, yeah. Isn’t it irnoic that when Obama actually does show some spine, he does so in a way that completely screws the country? Uh huh.

Anywho, back to Canada. Their Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, is none too happy with us, as is evidenced by the following from Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources in Canada:

In case you don’t have time to watch the entire video, this article from CBC News highlights the issues:

[snip] Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said the government hopes a new TransCanada application will be approved but that Canada is going to look to other markets to sell its oil.

“It is clear that the process is not yet over,” Oliver said.

“Our focus is, as you know, on diversifying our markets. We currently have one customer for our energy exports. That customer has said that it doesn’t want to expand at the moment. So it certainly intensifies the broad strategic objective of the government to diversify to Asia.”

In an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CBC’s Power & Politics, Oliver said he expects other pipelines to be built to the U.S. and said Canada’s efforts now are being put toward that diversification.

“Moving oil to the West Coast and on by tanker to Asia is even more important,” he said.[snip]

And there it is – they will look elsewhere. Gee, thanks, Obama.

TransCanada is not throwing in the towel completely yet:

[snip] “While we are disappointed, TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL. Plans are already underway on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer.

“Until this pipeline is constructed, the U.S. will continue to import millions of barrels of conflict oil from the Middle East and Venezuela and other foreign countries who do not share democratic values Canadians and Americans are privileged to have,” he said.

The company says it’s working with the state of Nebraska to design a new route around an ecologically sensitive area and expects to have finished that process by September or October of 2012.

Girling said the company expects a new application “would be processed in an expedited manner to allow for an in-service date of late 2014.”

Kerri-Ann Jones, assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of State, said in a briefing that if TransCanada submits a new application, it would trigger “a completely new review process.”

“It would just have to go through all of the requirements that are needed for this kind of application review,” she told reporters.[snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

Did you catch that? If TransCanada submits an option that skirts the particular area in Nebraska, the process would have to start all over from the beginning. It has already been a three year review. That means another three years.

And what that means is Obama is kicking this can down the road until AFTER the election. Another political move rather than a move for the nation. That’s just how he rolls. At least that’s what I think. How about you?