You whole argument is based on a what if? If I pull out of this lot a car may come around the corner and hit me.If I walk across the street a bus may hit me.If I buy a mega millions ticket I might win.See all what if's?
Nothing get past you, does it?
Of course it's based on what ifs. It's called "risk management" where you compare and contrast as many what ifs as possible to assess the risk.
You need to leave the lot because you need to go somewhere. Risk management tells you how to achieve that action. Do you minimize the risk by looking left, looking right, and then looking left again before pulling out? Or do accept a larger risk by closing your eyes and pulling out and hoping for the best? It's certainly quicker and easier to not bother looking before you pull out. And both methods will get you out of the lot. One way is less risky than the other. Which do you choose?
The risk management here is not whether to pull out of the lot at all, but how much risk you are willing to take to do it quicker and easier. Same with the pipeline. It's not whether to build or not build the pipeline, it's how to go about it to reduce the risk. If there is a mediocre spill of that pipeline which occurs into the Ogallala Aquifer itself,
The Breadbasket of America will be bare, useless for growing anything for anywhere from five to twenty years, and the water that supplies million of people will be just as useless. Do you
really and truly want to risk, recklessly, all that for the expediency of large oil company profits? Or does it make more sense to simply change the routing of the pipeline to reduce the risk?
Well, it's significantly political, but it's not purely political. It's also environmental, geopolitical and economical. There are real, actual lives at stake here, not to mention the livelihood of millions. It's political in the sense that it is a Canadian company who wants to run a dilbit pipeline across another country, namely the USA, and be able to dictate the routing of the pipeline.
Lets not forget that Obama first tried to postpone the decision untill 2013 after the election...
Let's also not forget that this project was first presented in 2005, and it was George Bush who wanted postpone the decision until after the 2008 election. You remember George Bush, right? He's the oil guy. And I believe him to be a Republican.
Obama says they need more time to study the impact yet they have had more then a couple of years to do that very study.
Bush said the same exact thing, and had nearly three years to do that very study.
I just hope that the voters remember this in nov!
Oh, they'll remember it. The Republicans will make sure of that. The decision itself was only partly political, but the response has been nothing
but political. It was a Republican who first delayed the decision on the project, at the insistence of other Republicans, and now the Republicans in a masterful slight of hand misdirection are all over Obama like white on rice about it, and people like you are lapping it up completely oblivious of the magic of illusion because of self-delusion.
But then this is really no surprise after all this is the president who is all about GREEN ENERGY
Even TransCanada said they wee not at all surprised by the decision. Adding that they,
"plan to reapply for the permit after finding a new route through Nebraska that would avoid environmentally delicate areas, which was one of the obstacles to the project as it was originally proposed." So they've had nearly six years to modify the proposal.
TransCanada figured Bush would rubber stamp it, but he didn't. He delayed it for environmental reasons, which is something that gets lost in the shuffle. Because he didn't rubber stamp it, TransCanada found themselves caught in the abyss of State Department bureaucracy that has taken this long to resolve. And yet because of politics, people and those who lap it up, are blaming Obama for every bit of it, when it reality he's coming in on the tail end of this deal. The fact is, TransCanada and the State Department were working on the details of the new routing, and by all accounts from State and TransCanada were close to finalizing those details, the last step before approval.
But, as per the status quo, Congressional Republicans decided to play political hardball by legislating a deadline, and all that got them was a four-seamer in the ribs.
"This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said.
TransCanada will submit their revised proposal, and the process starts all over again.
Incidentally, people who grasp at any straw they can to defend Obama is almost as ridiculous as those who grasp at imaginary straws to attack him.