EPA Regulations Crushing Prosperity : XL Pipeline Denied?

This certainty doesn't come as any surprise to anyone that has been paying attention, the EPA is the biggest impediment to prosperity in this country, and it is headed by one unelected person that believes she has the mandate to follow her leader to "Fundamentally" change our country into a socialist nightmare.

Unfortunately, the majority of citizens agree with her as they voted last November to continue America's slide into oblivion. And once the average citizens finally wakes up, and recognizes that their living standards are similar to those in third world countries, will they blame Bush again as the did for our economic problems last November?

Will common sense actually save us or will it come too late to do any good.

Environmental Regulations Stop Shovel-Ready Jobs
Source: "Examiner Editorial: Keystone Obstructions Show How Environmental Extremism Hobbles the Economy," Washington Examiner, April 24, 2013.

May 3, 2013

Shovel-ready jobs, the colloquialism that refers to jobs that can be created quickly, are increasingly difficult to find. When asked about his failed economic stimulus in 2011, President Obama joked that "shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected."  When shovel-ready jobs are identified, often there is a special interest blocking their creation, as is the case with the Keystone XL Pipeline project and environmentalists resisting the project, says the Washington Examiner.

• Through stimulus programs and other initiatives, more than $1 trillion has been spent to jump-start the economy, yet the nation's unemployment rate is still high.
• One reason for the high unemployment rate is that much of the job creation predicted by White House economists was delayed by environmental protections like the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
• Environmental regulations require extensive compliance, paperwork and a lengthy approval project that forces many shovel-ready jobs to sit idle waiting for regulatory approval.

The Keystone XL Pipeline project, which was first proposed in September of 2008, was slated to create over 13,000 constructions jobs according to administration officials. The privately-funded $7 billion project has been tied up in red tape.

• Among the many actions taken by federal regulators, they have convened at least 20 meetings, reviewed 1,800 comments and written a 1,000-page Environmental Impact Statement.
• The environmental assessments, along with political resistance, have effectively curbed the expansion of the pipeline along any of the proposed routes from the Canadian border south to Texas refineries.

Earlier in 2013, the U.S. State Department released an 800-page Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) stating that the pipeline would have minimal impact.

• In response, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has claimed that the SEIS ignores the pipeline's impact on global warming and is demanding that the State Department redo the entire analysis before its final decision in 90 days.
• If the EPA doesn't like the State Department's final decision, the issue will then be taken up by the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), yet another environmental regulatory body.
• Even if the CEQ approves the project, green activists will surely challenge the pipeline in court.

NEPA, the reason for the Keystone delays, costs the U.S. economy $577 billion in direct investment and 1.9 million jobs through its regulation of privately funded energy projects. Loosening environmental restrictions would bolster the economy and speed with which shovel-ready jobs are created.