President Obama has taken a bad situation and made it worse by rejecting TransCanada’s application to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas.  The president’s decision is good news for China, good news his special interests, and terrible news for the millions of Americans who are crying out for jobs and energy independence.

This President’s policies are no longer just failing to give us the recovery he promised—they are actively destroying new jobs for American workers.  Furthermore, rejecting this partnership with Canada opens the door for their resources to be shipped to our chief economic competitor.

As you know, this project has been reviewed and studied for years, regardless of the claims made by the administration.  However, the President is actively preventing the creation of thousands of good paying jobs for America’s families in order to satisfy the extreme environmentalist interests of a few.

When the Administration announced that it would delay making a decision on this important decision until after the Presidential election in November, Congress took action.  H.R. 3765, the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act, required that the president make a decision within 60 days of enactment. 

It has been more than three years since the application was originally filed to build the Keystone XL pipeline.  The president had an opportunity to help create American jobs and reduce America’s reliance on unstable foreign sources of oil, and he rejected it. 

Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, expressed his “profound disappointment with the news.”  He indicated to President Obama, during a phone conversation yesterday, that “he hoped that this project would continue given the significant contribution it would make to jobs and economic growth both in Canada and the United States of America.”

During a press conference yesterday, Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR) said the following about how this decision will impact his congressional district:

“Today President Obama has decided to create jobs in china and instead of the United States.  Why do I say that?  I went to the Canadian Embassy a few weeks ago, and met with officials there.  They said they wanted to do business in the United States but if they can’t do business here, they have to take those oil sands somewhere to have them refined.  They said they would do that In China. 

“Now this decision impacts not only the country, but specifically my district—the second Congressional district of Arkansas.  We have a company Welspun.  Welspun makes the pipe for the Keystone Pipeline, and they laid off some workers right after the president said that this decision would be after the next election.

“The folks at Welspun were hoping for the opposite decision today—approving the pipeline.  I spoke with them a little bit ago, they said their concerns were, number 1: that now they have all this pipe, hundreds of miles of pipe, sitting around, that’s gonna flood the markets, reducing the price of the pipe, and they may have to lay off more workers because of that.  And also, this is an Indian Company that came to the United States and invested in Little Rock, and now they fear this is gonna deter other companies around the world from making these sort of capital investments, because of political decisions.  So I am going to work with the speaker to do everything I can to get it approved.”

Reminder: The Energy and Commerce Committee also has a page on their website dedicated to the facts on the Keystone XL pipeline.

For questions or further information contact Sarah Makin