Having long gone past the point of fact and reason, 10,000 protesters recently marched around the White House carrying a symbolic black pipeline, when they should have been carrying a lump of coal. If the U.S. environmental lobby was honest about protecting the environment, its main target would be the coal-fired power generation industry in its own backyard, which is significantly more destructive than Canada's oilsands. But the oilsands - conveniently located in one place rather than scattered throughout two dozen states - are a much easier target.
And so we come to the point where, as some critics have already pointed out, U.S. President Barack Obama last week sacrificed 20,000 jobs to save one - his own. This should come as no surprise, for fact and reason often fall victim to politics. The delay of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 U.S. election is clearly a tactical manoeuvre on the part of the Obama administration. It placates Obama's environmental base while not entirely alienating his union constituency, which may yet benefit not just from the 20,000 direct jobs, but the estimated 120,000 indirect spinoff jobs - assuming the pipeline can survive the delay and potential withdrawal of customer support from producers wanting to ship via Keystone.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who looked positively jocular with Obama at the APEC summit in Hawaii, still believes the pipeline will get built. So does Alberta Premier Alison Redford, currently in Washington, D.C., meeting with officials on Keystone and the environmental achievements in the oilsands.
Harper has said the Keystone delay forces the urgency of speeding up the Northern Gateway pipeline to the West Coast for access to Asian markets. But that project will also face significant environmental and legal hurdles.
The winner, as of now, is TransCanada rival Enbridge, which can step up to the plate by increasing capacity and moving ahead with its proposed Wrangler pipeline in the United States. The possibility of shipping bitumen by rail, an alternative envisioned by the U.S. State Department, also got a big boost.
In the end, the environmental lobby's victory may be short-lived. No magic combination of wind, solar and electric cars powered by coal-fired generation will stop demand for Alberta crude. It is too valuable a commodity to leave in the ground and the global need for it will persist for decades.
The Obama administration's decision in itself does not kill Keystone. It wants a review to find an alternative to the route across Nebraska's Sand Hills and Ogallala aquifer.
David Wilkins, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada under George W. Bush, said the Keystone delay "certainly keeps us beholden to hostile nations instead of increasing our supply from our good friend and ally."
This, too, Obama knows, even if his environmental supporters refuse to acknowledge it.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
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