An amendment to the Highway Bill that would have approved construction of the Keystone XL pipeline failed in large part due to President Obama’s lobbying against the project.

Amazingly that hasn’t stopped the President from touting his support for the energy project that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and every major labor union estimated would have created 250,000 jobs over the course of the project, including 20,000 workers that would have been on the job immediately. 

After rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama is now claiming credit for speeding up the southern portion of the project. In reality, he doesn’t have to sign off on the southern, domestic portion of the pipeline, which is only 29% of the project. He just needs to authorize the portion of that crosses transnational borders, which he refuses to do.

During a visit yesterday to Cushing, Oklahoma he said this project is a priority and fast tracked the project.  As the Bloomberg report on his visit revealed, the President’s promise “won’t speed up the project, which already is slated to start construction as soon as June.”  The reality is this portion of the project is moving forward in a timely manner despite the president, not as a result of anything he has done.

With gas prices nearing $4 nationwide we need to develop all American energy resources and this can be done in environmentally sound ways. I encourage President Obama to work with Congress to produce an energy policy that would decrease our dependence on foreign oil. A perfect place to start would be for the President to quit working against Congress and instead join with us to finish the remaining two-thirds of the Keystone Pipeline.