The Death Knell for Keystone...

This week Obama hired John Podesta as "Counselor to the President", ensuring the Keystone Pipeline never gets approval.

Why hire Podesta?  Aside from being the consummate Washington D.C. insider (former Clinton Chief of Staff, Lobbyist, co-founder of the both The Podesta Group and the Center for American Progress) he was added to the White House Staff and will have a "broad portfolio touching on the economy and congressional relations" according to the NY Times.

But, Podesta is a flaming liberal environmentalist who actually still believes in the global warming hoax and is now empowered to influence official Obama regime policy regarding all things environmental.  The official line is that Podesta has "officially recused" himself from anything regarding the Keystone pipeline.   More "transparency" from this regime...

A little about the benefits of the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline:

• 9,000 skilled (re:high paying) American workeres will be required to build it.
• 7,000 U.S manufacturing jobs will be supported for the production of steel pipe, valves and pumps
• TransCanada (pipeline owner/manager) already has 50 U.S. suppliers in 18 U.S. states.
• TransCanada currently employs 4,000 U.S. employees in OK & TX building a $2.3 billion Gulf Coast Pipeline Project
• These pipelines will combine for $5 billion in property taxes alone
• The Keystone XL will add $172 billion to the U.S. GDP by 2035 and will create 1.8 million person-years employment in the US over the next 22 years
• Keystone XL will reduce the amount of oil the U.S. needs to import from places like the Middle East and Venezuela who, in case you haven;t noticed, aren't exactly our best friends

So what's so bad about the Keystone XL Pipeline?

According to guys like Podesta it'll only further entrench U.S. "dependency" on oil.  Really?  I wonder if knows of any electric powered 777's or even MD80's?  How about electric powered 18 wheeler's or container ships?  I'm just sayin'.  Come on john, I appreciate your desire to lessen our dependency on oil, though I want to more specifically lessen out dependency on Middle East and Venezuelan oil, rather than on oil in general, but really, do you have it's replacement?  I didn't think so. 

Back to the "transparency of the Obama regime.  I do need to point out, John Podesta already sits on the Foreign Affairs Policy Board and the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board both of which are VERY involved in the Keystone XL pipeline approval process.

So whats the big deal you say?  Well, let me introduce you to a board member of Podesta's Center for American Progress, Tom Steyer.  Aside from initially making a fortune trading in oil and oil companies in his hedge funds he and Podest authored an opinion piece in the WSJ: "We Don't Need More Foreign Oil & Gas".  Oh, and did I mention Mr. Steyer is also a major investor in a competing pipeline by Kinder Morgan. 

Mr. Steyer is also a large, no HUGE, democrat donor (through PACs).

This is all VERY complex and the best  exposé on all this is on the Free Beacon.