LETTER: Disappointed in Keystone decision

Once again, I am disappointed by decisions made by President Obama. His decision to stop the Keystone pipeline is yet another example of his ideology conflicting with the best interests of the people of Montana.

In my opinion, his logic is grossly flawed when it comes to economics and the environment. I also believe his decision had much more to do with politics and his own aggrandizement than the U.S. economy and environment. Although we know that his decision on Keystone was made long ago, he waited until recently to announce it so he could attend the Climate Change conference in Paris and pat himself on the back for taking the lead on progress towards his flawed conclusions.

Montanans should be particularly upset with his decision because it negatively affects our economy in many ways. A lot of the oil produced in Eastern Montana would be transported via the pipeline to refineries in the Gulf Coast. That oil is now transported by very long trains, owned by Obama supporter Warren Buffett, at a much higher cost and with a much higher environmental danger.

One of the president’s reasons stated at his Keystone killing press conference was: “…the pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to our economy. So if Congress is serious about wanting to create jobs, this was not the way to do it. If they want to do it, what we should be doing is pass bipartisan infrastructure plan that in the short term to create more than 30 times jobs per year than the pipeline would and in the long run, would benefit our economy and our workers for decades to come.” He is cancelling a private sector funded project which would have provided many middle class jobs while at the same time promoting a huge taxpayer funded program. The two issues are not even related.

A question I must ask is: Where will the taxpayers he needs to fund his huge government programs be when he continually destroys thousands of jobs provided by the private sector? In addition to the Keystone decision, look at what he is doing to Montana coal field and other resource-related jobs. He and his believers are not at all interested in improving the existing economy or the environment, but are only interested in power and a socialist approach to governance.

Along with the Keystone construction jobs and ongoing pipeline operations jobs going away, he has destroyed many private sector jobs that would be lost in petroleum-related industries as well. The U.S. could have used the oil from Canada to produce thousands of products: plastics, lubricants, waxes, asphalt, fabrics, perfume, carpet and the list goes on. We could have encouraged the Canadians to build factories in the U.S. to utilize the use of their oil to manufacture many of the items listed and others.

In addition, we could have worked with them to fund extensive research on how to make all fossil fuels more useful, safe and environmentally friendly. Now the Chinese and other countries will have that opportunity. In the meantime we continue to import oil from Russia and Venezuela, which also produce tar sands oil.

I hope the new president will take an objective look at Keystone and change the direction the country is going with all of our natural resource assets. The new president can help us return Montana to being the Treasure State. Just sayin’. —Richard Griffin, Kalispell