RADICAL NATION: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Dangerous Plan for America by Sean Spicer

Author:Sean Spicer [Spicer, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: political science, Commentary & Opinion, American Government, Executive Branch, Corruption & Misconduct, Political Ideologies, Conservatism & Liberalism, Political Process, Leadership, Political Advocacy, Political Parties, Biography & Autobiography, Political, Presidents & Heads of State
ISBN: 9781630061722
Google: NFw7EAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Humanix Books
Published: 2021-10-26T23:38:11.456519+00:00

The Keystone Pipeline Cancellation

On his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13990: “Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis.” The centerpiece of this order is Section 6: “Revoking the March 2019 Permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline.” Biden’s order makes no environmental or economic sense. It only makes political sense as a gesture to the radical environmentalist fringe.

The 1,200-mile Keystone XL Pipeline system was commissioned in 2010. It is jointly owned by Canada’s TC Energy Corporation and the province of Alberta, Canada. The pipeline was intended to carry crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries and distribution centers in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The Obama State Department concluded that Keystone would have no adverse impact on greenhouse gas emissions because the Alberta crude oil would be extracted whether it passed through the pipeline or not. In fact, killing Keystone would force Alberta crude oil to be shipped by rail or truck, resulting in much higher carbon emissions plus a greater risk of leaks. Even though it made no environmental sense to kill the pipeline, President Obama was committed to the Paris Agreement, so he shut Keystone down in 2015.

President Trump greenlighted Keystone XL on January 24, 2017. In fact, I was present in the Roosevelt Room for President Trump’s signing of the executive action reversing President Obama’s veto of the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. A number of White House staffers were on hand as President Trump prepared to sign the document. With his pen poised over the paper, Mr. Trump looked up and said, “I assume these projects are all being built with American steel.”

After an uncomfortable silence, someone said, “That wasn’t part of the executive order, sir. In fact, much of the steel would probably come from foreign sources.”

The president’s brow furrowed, and he set the pen on the desk. “I can’t sign this order,” he said. “It needs to be revised. We need to do everything possible to utilize American steel. I’m not going to do this unless it benefits American workers to the greatest extent possible.” That was Donald Trump’s mindset: American workers came first. The document was revised to the president’s satisfaction, and he signed it.

Unfortunately, environmental activists tied up President Trump’s order in the courts for more than two years. Finally, in March 2019, President Trump was able to issue the Keystone permit. However, those two years of legal wrangling proved fatal to the project when President Trump was unable to win reelection.

TC Energy and the unions lobbied President-elect Biden, explaining the environmental and economic benefits of the Keystone project: the union construction jobs it would create, the steel pipe that would be made in America, the $10 million green job training program TC Energy would fund, the hundreds of millions of dollars the pipeline would pour into the U.S. economy, and the 100 percent clean and renewable energy used to operate the pipeline. These arguments fell on deaf ears.

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