Louisiana proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline are blasting President Barack Obama for his veto Tuesday of a bill approving the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline.
Don Briggs, president Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, tells The Advertiser the president’s veto is a reflection on a “broken” political system.
“This president to me is showing us Congress is not as important as we (voters) thought they were,” Briggs says. “What’s new? He’s crammed all sorts of things down our throats.”
The pipeline is designed to send crude oil produced in the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. In his veto of congressional approval of the pipeline, the president sided with environmental groups who claim the project would create a swath of problems.
In a statement shortly after the president’s veto, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., says the bill would have helped create as many as 40,000 jobs. Cassidy was critical of Obama.
“He ignored the 60% of Americans who want the pipeline built,” Cassidy says in the release. “Keystone could save workers’ lives because transporting oil by pipeline means fewer accidents and spills. It is supported by Republicans and Democrats. It’s a jobs bill the president has no reason to ignore. Louisiana families want Keystone built.”
Briggs says Obama is more concerned with politics than with the good of the country, noting the United States has 330,000 miles of pipelines—37,000 miles in Louisiana alone.
Louisiana’s stake in Keystone, he says, is the ability to take in oil from Canada, refine it and ship it out to other parts of the country.“That’s what makes Louisiana so important,” Briggs says.
