Will Obama approve the Keystone XL pipeline?

Given that we have had some oil booms lately without any noticeable change in gas prices (despite more oil and using less gas a country)I have to question whether or not this would bring down prices at any point in the future.

I don't believe that's even part of the argument. From what I've read, economists predict the price differential would be negligible at best.

TransCanada should just look elsewhere

This is what I've read as well. Plus its all getting shipped overseas.

What about the constructions jobs?

If it harms the environment, I'm personally against it. Besides, we're already America's bitch and I'd much rather we sell our oil to China.

It's definitely something worth looking into. You do have to weigh the costs vs benefits though, how long are those jobs going to last is another question I have along with how much environmental impact.

I always hear about it adding construction jobs, but I rarely hear the details about how long people will actually have those jobs.Will it be like my current position? Contract jobs that only last for a number of months?I sort of imagine so seeing as how it would be difficult to get a large number of people to pull up roots and slowly move across the country to build more of the pipeline. I imagine it would be more like the pipeline coming to town so people can come have a job for a few months and then you no long will after it's been made.

I think Obama will pass the hot potato to the next president. A republican will approve it, Hillary might, a more liberal democrat probably won't.

then why build it?

great! oil in our streets, parks, forest. only to be cover with paper towels and NEVER reported on main stream media....

The reason you likely haven't seen those figures it because the estimates vary widely based on the source and methods used. Reputable numbers I've seen estimate about 4,000 temporary jobs and 50 or so permanent ones.

That's a littler hard to ascertain depending on your priorities. There will be a few thousand jobs created to build the pipeline, but they will be temporary. There's some environmental risk and some external risk to other industries (particularly given it's proposed path), but quantifying that risk has proven to be difficult.

Not sure how replacing America with China helps/improves anything. As if China gives one shit about Canada........

@mattbbpl:

So tens of thousands is massive hyperbole. At only around 4000 temp jobs my question about why people are clamoring so loudly about this particular thing. Especially considering that temp jobs are not all that great, benefits tend to be non-existant as is job security.

Yep, if someone attacks Canada let the Chinese come to the rescue.

I think he will, he's taken the moderate-right position on domestic energy issues.

From what I can tell, the clamoring is almost entirely politically based. I'm sure there are some campaign contributions to consider, but even outside of that it would be good politics as it's proven to be very good at riling up the base as they can use it as an example of government getting in the way of the free market utopia.

It really speaks to how shallow our political discourse is at this point time.

Do you think republicans will oppose it if he does support it?

Too late at this point. They'll undermine the decision to insinuate the path to the decision was damaging in some way, but they can't turn an entire 360 on it now.

Obama won't pass it.

Would not be surprised if the negative externalities + accounting cost for this thing easily exceed its revenue.

@mattbbpl:

I wouldn't put it pas fox news to give it a shot, they made the shutdown the fault of Obama and the democrats after all.

only if warren buffett decides to dump his rail companies, that is the only reason the pipeline was ever a no go.