Greasy Palm Sets The Stage

I’ll begin my blog today from this excerpt from an article from Fox News. 

Obama Administration Is Pressured by GOP, Unions to Expedite Controversial Pipeline Project 

We believe that the benefits of this pipeline are too many to be allowing it to be derailed by environmental extremists. The Keystone XL will create good-paying jobs here in the U.S. and Canada,” says Brent Booker of the Laborers International Union.

And Bruce Burton of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers adds, “The Keystone XL pipeline is shovel-ready. As soon as a presidential permit is granted, jobs will be created — jobs that our members desperately need.”

The unions argue the pipeline would create 20,000 direct jobs and 115,000 indirect jobs from suppliers and the like.

Republicans argue the administration ducked a final decision because it wanted to avoid angering part of the president’s political base.

“Which sector is the president going to mess over by making a decision?” asks John Shimkus, R-Ill. “Is he going to blow off his supporters in organized labor or is he going to blow off his friends in the environmental left after the election? Does anyone have any idea? He’s got to do one, right?”

House Republicans will push legislation taking the final decision away from the president and the State Department, once Nebraska decides a route of its choosing. The House GOP would give the decision instead to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates pipelines, in the hope of taking the politics out of it.

For their part, Democrats had broader objections to the project, making clear they oppose the pipeline in part because they don’t like the country’s dependence on oil.

Some Democrats, though, criticized the delay. Rep. Elliot Engel, D-N.Y., noted he voted against the Alaska pipeline for environmental reasons. “But we can’t just keep saying no to everything and then complain that gasoline is $4 a gallon and that we’re beholden to Hugo Chavez and the Saudi Royal family,” he says. “I think we have to have a little bit of a balance. I was disappointed in the administration’s pushing back of this deadline because I think it’s time to make a move one way or the other.”

We all know what the issues are and we can make a decision, he continued, saying “delaying it doesn’t benefit anybody.”

(END OF EXCERPT.)

Alright my take on this is greasy palm sets the stage.  Do we Americans enjoy paying the Saudis $4.00/gallon for gas?  (Republicans argue the administration ducked a final decision because it wanted to avoid angering part of the president’s political base.)  Hmmm could this possibly be true? 

Where does greasing the palms of politicians stop?  What happened to the good of the people?  Granted this is a Union, but truly jobs need to be created for our citizens.  This by the way creating the pipeline has been around since our former President George W. Bush, who by the way was for it.  Why do we want to remain a prisoner to the Middle East?  America needs to take care of its own!  Let’s find resources of our own. 

I say, “Let’s not let the greasy palm politicians win anymore!”

Works Cited:  By Jim Angle FoxNews.com

Published December 02, 2011

By Terry Board

© Burnett Publishing 2011

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