Saturday, December 17, 2011

Credit where credit is due

I'd like some more of this, please.

What [it] basically does is require the State Department to issue the permit for Keystone XL within 60 days, unless President Obama explicitly says the pipeline is not in the national interest and kills it (that would definitely not be good for him to do).
It also tells State to allow construction to go ahead while it works with Nebraska to resolve any remaining environmental or routing issues. The governor and legislature there are on board with getting a new route to allay any concerns.
So we got the Keystone language, Dems got a 2 month extension of their payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, but the cost is fully offset (with spending cuts) so it doesn’t add to the deficit.
The Republicans in the House and Senate have basically set it up so they either get the pipeline, or Obama goes down looking even worse and they have something solid they can pin on him.  That's good politicking there.

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