Poison pill complicates payroll tax talks

President Barack Obama is playing politics by trying to delay a decision on its development until after the 2012 election.


It’s sad that Obama would rather play politics and play to his liberal, environmental base than approve the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would carry an estimated 700,000 barrels of oil a day from the sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Texas, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma.


A decision won’t be made on the pipeline until 2013. The delay is intended to allow the project’s developer to figure out a way around Nebraska’s Sandhills, an ecologically sensitive region that supplies water to eight nearby states.


We believe ample time has been given to determine this and get the project moving.


The project has been studied exhaustively over a three-year period, including two environmental impact studies.


Obama claims he is not playing politics with this issue.


Of course he is.


If Obama were to approve the development of this pipeline, he risks angering his tree-hugging friends and risks losing contributions from a lot of liberal donors.


The majority of Americans believe that we need to depend less on unstable or unfriendly foreign countries for oil.


Allowing the development of this pipeline meets those criteria.


Opponents say it would bring “dirty oil” that requires huge amounts of energy to extract, as well as the risk of spills.


That argument is weak since that energy would be expended in Canada and because there are numerous pipelines already crisscrossing this country with minimal problems.


They want to have fights over an oil pipeline that has nothing to do with whether or not Americans, on average, ought to see their taxes go up $1,000 in 2012. That’s what gives Washington a bad name,” Mr Carney said.
The 1,700-mile pipeline is only one of the so-called “riders” that have been attached to the legislation by Republican leaders, who faced a potentially damaging revolt from conservative lawmakers over the payroll tax plan and needed to find a way to appease them.
Tying the pipeline to the payroll tax cut appeals to Republicans because it could potentially split the Democratic party. Indeed, two powerful liberal constituencies have been at loggerheads over the Keystone XL project, with environmentalists fearing contamination and construction unions desperately wanting the jobs.
Some Democrats show signs of wavering. “We’ve got to get a deal done,” said Emanuel Cleaver, a Democratic congressman from Missouri, on Friday. “I do think that if I had one minute to vote I’d probably vote to accept the deal, but it’s not good government.”
The harder line taken by Republican leaders has complicated and lengthened the negotiations over the payroll tax cut extension, which were supposed to wrap up by December 16.
As well as dealing with the new Republican demands, negotiators still have to sort out the thorny question of how to pay for the new stimulus. Democrats are under pressure to drop their insistence on a millionaires’ tax, while Republicans mainly want to cover the cost by curbing the pensions and pay of federal workers.
There are some areas of compromise in terms of generating revenues, such as imposing higher fees of loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage groups, and launching new spectrum auctions. But the biggest question in US fiscal policy remains unresolved, with little time to spare.