Keystone Pipeline Delay Puts Energy Future On Hold

The president who often lets policy decisions be driven by others now says the pipeline to bring Canada's tar sands oil to America is his decision to make. So make it already, Mr. President. An increasingly peeved Canada may not wait for the U.S. to remain its best customer, a promise Obama made Brazil as it pursued offshore drilling we were curtailing. "What will happen if there wasn't approval — and we think there will be — is that we'll simply have to intensify our efforts to sell the oil elsewhere," Joe Oliver, Canada's natural resource minister, told Reuters. That elsewhere is China. As we've noted, Sinopec, a Chinese state-controlled oil company, has a stake in a $5.5 billion plan to build the Northern Gateway Pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific Coast province of British Columbia. Alberta's finance minister met this month with Sinopec and CNOOC, China's other big oil company, and representatives of China's banks. Unlike issues such as ObamaCare, which the White House let Congress run with, the Keystone ball has been squarely placed in the president's court by Obama himself. Will he dismiss a loyal ally and friend if it means offending his environmentalist base? He hasn't exactly been a profile in courage...more