Christopher Helman

Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff


3/19/2012 @ 7:06PM |16,559 views

Obama's Upcoming Visit To Keystone Pipeline Site: 'So Hypocritical And So Ironic'

US President Barack Obama smiles as he makes a...

No, seriously, I love pipelines. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Updated Wednesday, March 21.

On Thursday, as part of a roadshow for his “all of the above” energy strategy, President Obama is scheduled to visit Cushing, Okla., home to the world’s biggest oil storage complex. There he will tour a yard where TransCanada is storing pipes to be used in building the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. The line will stretch from Cushing down to refineries on the Texas gulf coast.



Take credit? Naw, the president couldn’t be taking credit for this stretch of the Keystone XL, could he? After all, he must know full well that TransCanada got approvals to build the southern stretch months ago, and that pipelines that stay within U.S. borders don’t need presidential approval anyway. Maybe someone forgot to tell Obama advisor David Axelrod. “This president has approved dozens of pipelines,” said Axelrod on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “So he’s certainly not hostile to transporting oil but we have to do it in an appropriate way.”

Isn’t it more likely that the president is going to Cushing (as well as another stop to an oilfield in New Mexico) to bash oil? After all, it was just a couple weeks ago at a campaign stop in North Carolina that Obama dismissed oil as “the fuel of the past.”

Maybe the president is going to Oklahoma to apologize for the comments of his actor friend Alec Baldwin (seen here with the Obamas at the White House correspondents dinner, May 2010). Over the weekend Baldwin tweeted that Oklahoma’s pro-oil, anti-environmentalist Senator James Inhofe should be retired “to a solar-powered gay bar.” Baldwin also tweeted, “Is there a bigger Oil Whore than James Inhofe?”

Maybe he wants to take credit for the mammoth gains in domestic oil and gas production in the past three years (oil production is up 20% to 5.8 million bpd)? No, that couldn’t be the case either. The president knows full well that he had nothing to do with the development of oil and gas from shale reservoirs in Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and North Dakota. In fact, it’s clear as day that the Obama administration thinks oil and gas companies should be drilling less, not more.

The EPA has been trying out various ways of asserting its limited authority under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to regulate hydraulic fracturing. The Bureau of Land Management wants to increase fees and royalty rates charged to companies drilling on public lands. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has delayed a long-planned lease auction of forestland in Ohio, ostensibly to study fracking. And on Tuesday, after triggering outrage from farmers, the U.S.D.A. retracted its plan to force anyone with a mortgage guaranteed by the agency to seek an onerous federal environmental review before leasing their lands to oil and gas drillers. “It’s schizophrenic,” says Ken von Schaumburg, a former EPA administrator now advising drillers on fracking regulations with the law firm of Clark Hill in Washington. The aborted U.S.D.A. plan would have required anyone who wanted to lease their land for drilling to first seek a National Environmental Policy Act review, which can take years.

“All you have to do is look at his record the last three years,” says Larry Nichols, chairman and co-founder of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy. “Who wins this election will have a profound impact on American energy policy.”

If President Obama thinks oil and gas development is something to encourage, then back in 2008 he wouldn’t have pledged to levy a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies of more than $15 billion a year. That tax hasn’t materialized, but the rhetoric remains. In his radio address last Saturday, the president said that Congress should move to cut billions in oil and gas “loopholes.” A congressional vote, he said, would put lawmakers on record as to whether they “stand up for oil companies” or “stand up for the American people.”

It’s an either/or, huh? Tell that to the oil-and-gas boom states of Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Louisiana, or North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, and where there are thousands of jobs available working on the Bakken shale oil field. Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources has the biggest position in the Bakken, where oil production has grown from a trickle a decade ago to surpass 500,000 barrels per day now. Last month North Dakota surpassed California as the state with the third-most oil production. Hamm says it will pass Alaska later this year.

Yet we know the Obama administration doesn’t like oil drilling in the Bakken because last year the Department of Justice brought a criminal indictment against Hamm’s Continental Resources (and other oil companies) over the death of a handful of migratory birds that apparently died in a wastewater pit. Nevermind that an estimated 100 million birds die each year from flying into windows. (A judge threw the case out.)

The southern stretch of the Keystone XL will be instrumental in opening up the bottleneck that has prevented Bakken oil from getting to market. Bakken producers have had to rely on tanker trucks and trains (especially those operated by Obama buddy Warren Buffett” type=”person” active=”false” key=”warren-buffett”]Warren Buffett[/entity]‘s Burlington” type=”place” active=”false” key=”nc/burlington”]Burlington[/entity] Northern Santa Fe) to get crude to market.

I can only guess that the president has a surprise in store for Thursday. A wild prediction: he will use his remarks in Cushing to explain that the U.S. economy needs oil and gas, that he’s approving the entire Keystone XL–because no matter where they are laid, pipelines are a far safer way of moving crude than by truck or train. What’s more, he will declare the entire Eastern Seaboard as well as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge open to oil drilling. Whaddya think? Too alienating to his base?

What’s the worry? It’s not as if they’re going to vote for Romney.




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  • fooledme fooledme 1 year ago

    I’m Canadian and patience wears thin. Hey Mr. Prez.; can you spell C-H-I-N-A?!!

  • Lee Church Lee Church 1 year ago

    My wife happens to be canadian (that has about as much to do with anything as you stating you are Canadian).

    The President has been entirely consistent. Canada is not that concerned with Nebraska’s water quality, and as your post suggests, you are really just concerned with the money the oil will produce.

    While your position that it’s all about the money is fine (at least you have values of some sort I suppose), for many in the US that are pro-pipeline (like myself), it is a matter of doing things safely. Running the pipeline through sensitive areas may be the cheapest route, but it’s hardly a burden to run it around the sensitive areas.

    I appreciate the threat to export to China.. We heard the bullying from the PM Harper as well. It’s a bit empty of a threat as the pipeline would have allowed the oil to be piped to US port, and exported (avoiding a slew of taxes in the process). There is an argumen to be made that the economics of the pipeline would have made that happen.

    Running the pipeline through a sensitive area when easy alternatives exist was not smart. Congress pushing for a quick approval (the same ones that were front running the deal by insider buying while applying the pressure to approve it quickly) was rightfully balanced by the President’s decision.

    Also of note is the lack of YOU saying anything to support the President when a bunch of folks protested the XL pipeline. The GOP/TP (and you) sat back and encouraged them with the possible motivation that anything against the President is good to encourage. That is resulted in a delay is the result of the political games backfiring on you and the GOP/TP.

    So now we hear a recasting of the ‘reason’ it was denied. Geez.. didn’t see that one coming.

    All these comments, and the article itself is garbage. A bunch of folks making stuff up (including the author) and then complaining about it.

    And it all goes under the name of public ‘debate’. Right.

    As a supporter of the pipeline (thought not through where it is not wanted aka Nebraska sensitive water areas) and a supporter of the President, I find it ignorant and disingenuous (aka lies) to try to make the President’s “all energy sources” policy into an ‘anti oil’ policy. It’s hogwash.

    The author of the article needs to be fired and owes everyone an apology.


  • Is that one of the 57 states?

  • John Stinger John Stinger 1 year ago

    Please. Bash Obama because of something Alec Baldwin tweeted? This is journalism? Rush or Glenn or Fox, I could understand. Even WSJ. But Forbes?

    Come on.

  • Great article. Kudos to Christopher Helman for a well written news piece with an excellent sense of the black political comedy that is surely forthcoming from Obama’s photo op. Only a narcissist could visit the Cushing petroleum complex and not see his own hypocrisy in attending such an event. Only in liberal/progressive “new speak” will Obama be able to put a positive spin on this activity.

  • This article was a waste of my time. Full of negativity and ended with a GUESS? Well GUESS WHAT? Obama stopped the pipeline in NEBRASKA, NOT Oklahoma. He made a promise to environmentalists there. I don’t see many Nebraska people begging for the opposite. Guess what? Oklahoma needed a pipeline…and Obama is doing right by that and making one because Oklahomans wanted it. Oklahoma is booming in O&G right now. This looks like a win-win. How is that hypocritical? It’s ironic you SAY he wants to drill less, but he is drilling more. Really FORBES?!?! Really?

  • Christopher Helman Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff 1 year ago

    geochemistgirl>> obama had nothing to do with making or approving the stretch of the pipeline that starts in oklahoma. it is also not true that “he is drilling more.” he’s not drilling at all.

  • Lee Church Lee Church 1 year ago

    GOP/TP shill Helman,

    It’s also true that President Bush and other Presidents never drilled at all. Heck, I suspect that most folks on an oil rig don’t actually drill, they monitor, they capture the oil (and gas), they flare, they load, etc. etc. And the executives don’t turn the drill either.. So give the semantics a rest. It’s semantics.

    Your attempt to belittle people with semantic arguments to spin your agenda based half truths is not working.

    You are the one that is asserting the President’s position as X, then you go on to attack position X with half baked logic and semantic games.

    We get it already. You don’t like the President and are opposed to anything he has done, hasn’t done, will do, won’t do, might have done or might not have done. Great.. we get it already.

    Your reply to geochemistgirl is shocking really. IS attempted bullying and the microphone of forbes as your ‘bully pulpit’ really all the GOP/TP has?

    Fact is, the President made it clear that the XL pipeline permit was rejected precisely because of the time limits imposed by Congress. Your failure to acknowlege that was the President’s stated reason is outrageous. This reason was widely acknowledged and is well documented. For you to ignore this and assign your own ‘reason’ is either ignorant or dishonest.

    At the time the permit was rejected, the President (and it’s President Obama to you!) said that they were welcome to reapply.

    It was also suggested that they route the pipeline away from nebraska sensitive areas. This was clearly stated. Your failure to acknowledge this, assign your own strawman, and then complain about the strawman you created is absurdity. Forbes should be ashamed to publish such garbage.

    We really do get it. The GOP/TP game plan is to make sure that anything ‘bad’ is the President’s fault, while anything ‘good’ is not associated with the President. In short, you are simply trying to demonize the President.

    Your voice is not part of a civil discussion and is simply political tourette syndrome (my phrase).

    I say all of this as both a supporter of pipelines (and a TRP stockholder) and a supporter of the President (someone as small as you won’t change that).

    Please don’t bother to reply, I have no time for your nonsense.

    without regard,

  • We live in a world where you now balance economy and environment equally (We can all thank Bp for that). Let me put it in terms you understand- “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” Cardno ENTRIX, an environmental consulting firm, assisted the State Department in preparing the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Keystone XL project, which urged Obama to deny the permit. What do you want him to do? Go against Department of State? Well boo- we lost that battle, but it was awarded elsewhere. He is the President, and he does have to make decisions. Seeing how data is construed and overlapped in rig counts (what defines one and so on) and for land permits, I do know Oklahoma is experiencing an oil and gas boom for our economy. Thankfully we have little environmental influences here. One more note- The bp oil spill drew public attention and green-peace activists without the help of Obama. Until O&G can prove it promotes a healthy economy as well as values life within that economy, we will have to take the good punches with the bad ones. This IS GOOD for Oklahoma. Don’t take that away from them.

  • CR1588 CR1588 1 year ago

    Lee Church,
    Rejecting a project to enhance North American energy independence then pawning it off on a time line is either ignorant or dishonest, I suspect both, as is you pretending that was actually the case.

  • Play Righter Play Righter 1 year ago

    Rejected because of time limits set by Congress? Really? Isn’t the fact that the pipeline has already been approved three times in three years, and Obama wanted (for political reasons) to delay it until after the election — and the GOP called his bluff by calling his bluff. Isn’t that the truth?

  • Lee Church Lee Church 1 year ago

    You are ignoring that Nebraska objected to the pipeline being run through their sensitive watershed areas.

    You are ignoring that folks protested (and what did you do to counter that protest and support the President at that time? crickets.. ‘it wasn’t your job.. your job is to be against everything the President does, or doesn’t do.. we get it).

    What you suggest is that the stated reason for denying the permit was different than the President stated. Using strick logic you are choosing to ignore evidence, and then projecting your own suspicions.

    You don’t believe the President, and you believe what some guy (the author of this article) made up instead.

    We get it already. You just make this stuff up, and then reference the made up stuff as further ‘proof’.

    Now for a test for CR1588 poster above: You have two seconds to respond.. ooops you are already over the time line.. too late!

    Why didn’t you respond on time? You assert that I have the right to assign any time frame I want and assign the reason for your lack of response.. thus I will assign some narfarious reason to your lack of response on time. Were you out ax murdering people? perhaps some other nasty thing.. oh the choices one has!

    Your assignment of reason, while ignoring the stated reason would take big evidence (using the big claims require big evidence scientific approach) . That Congress didn’t allow the process to be done prudently, especially considering the protests and public outrage, and objections by the state of NE takes big evidence. It has to be more than what CR1588 asserts (well actually they provide no evidence whatsoever, they just say the GOP/TP catch phrases “energy independence, apple pie, etc.).

    - you do believe in state’s rights, yes? where are all those GOP/TPer who argue that the states should decide?.. strange.. they are quiet… are they unaware that NE objected? or are they just playing dumb – they do that so well!). CR1588 fails to argue that states have no right to object to pipelines that go through their water supplies. CR1588 fails to argue that the federal government should overrule states and force them to accept the Federal government’s terms. And they fail to argue that the executive branch would not be setting an example that all state department functions, agreements , etc, are now negotiated by Congress. CR1588 would need to argue this and much more.. but doesn’t. Actually CR1588 just does what they always do.. try to bully the ‘narrative’. We get it. We really do get it.. the GOP/TP has been doing this for a few years now.

    Any weaving of shreds and bits against the President is applauded, and and anything that disputes that is rejected. This is similar to conspiracy theorists piece together a fantasy world, with any counter evidence used as further evidence of the conspiracy. It’s not healthy.

    For the record, the President has an “all of the above” policy for energy. And for the record I happen to support the Pipeline (am a TRP shareholder). But I do want it done safely and folks like CR1588 and the article’s author demonstration of poor judgement make the case that the President’s decision was the correct decision.

    We get it.. really we do. The GOP/TP needs to paint anything the President does (or doesn’t do) as bad. And you eat it up and add it to your conspiracy theory thinking that the President is somehow saying one thing and doing another.

    CR1588, I seriously doubt you have the mental firepower to detect the strawman argument in the author’s article, and your predisposition against the President allows you to take any sound bite you feel can be used against him as ‘accurate’ while discounting anything that undermines your agenda.

    Please don’t bother responding.. It will save us both a great deal of time.

    To other folks; this article is a good example of selection bias. The author (and the commentor above) chooses to ignore actions and statements that don’t fit with their agenda, while citing as conclusive evidence actions that can be weaved into the agenda.

    It’s intellectually dishonest (and I use the word loosely as there is not a whole bunch of intellect happening in these comments, nor in the article). It’s common when folks start with an agenda , and then go looking for ‘facts’ to weave into their agenda.

    One general comment before I lay the silly CR1588 comment to rest. If CR1588′s assertion were to be true.. and one buys into high fuel prices working against the President’s chances of re-election (is CR1588 suggesting that the President’s strategy is to raise fuel prices before the election? really?), then wouldn’t the President be doing everything he could to approve the pipeline? Using Occam’s razor, the simplest solution is that the President indeed sees a problem with running the pipeline through a sensitive water area over Nebraska’s objections.

    And of course the simplest answer for the GOP/TP and the author of the article is to force the President to refuse the permit and use it against him in the election, full knowing that they would have also delayed the permit due to Nebraska’s objections.

    We really do get it.. The sort of silliness from CR1588 and the author of the article have nothing to do with energy policy and everything to do with politics.

    Fox news will do their spin.. and shill Helman will do his job as well… but it’s hardly ‘journalism’ and hardly adding anything to the national discussion on energy policy. It’s just political tourette syndrome.. yell random sound bites and paranoid conspiracy theory stuff.

    The article made Forbes into a dirty street corner and the author into the madman on the corner yelling gibberish out to passersby.

  • David Shows David Shows 1 year ago

    Get the sneer out of your voice.

    Congratulations for “political tourette syndrome”. Those who suffer from it I’m sure appreciate your belittling it to make your incoherent point.

    The Keystone XL was vetted three times longer than any other pipleine in America and passed the EPA guidlines. 50,000 miles of pipeline already honeycomb Nebraska. The extension guideline was done for one reason; to force his hand. He was going to dangle this as a bait during the campaign.

    By the way, as I’m sure you know, being a TRP stockholder, the Keystone was ALREADY built five years ago; this is just an extension.

    Please don’t bother to reply, just put down the hash pipe and get back to class.

  • Lee Church Lee Church 1 year ago

    So you are suggesting 1) that President Obama was playing politics with it.. and 2) that is bad….

    But suggesting that the GOP/TP was 1) playing politics with it and 2) it is good.

    You managed to make both assertions in the same sentence.. Congratulations.. It’s good to see cognative dissonance is alive and well.

    Given that you are asserting that politics was a driver (and not the President’s stated reason), it is logical to conclude that denying the Permit on the grounds that politics was driving it was ok.. which is what the President did.. the artificial timeline was driving the approval process.

    So I guess you agree with the decision (at least if we use logic) but disagree on what was happening inside the President’s head at the time. You assert that you know better than the President what he was thinking, and in that brilliance don’t support your claim with anything (did you interview the President? Have you ever spoken with him at all?, have you actually read about his energy policy, I mean really read it rather than the shill GOP/TPers comedy interpretation routine?).

    Geez, man, I’m for the stinking pipeline! It’s certainly the preferred choice for oil and gas rather than rail or trucks. Doing it safely and in a manner that makes sense is important, a criteria wholly lacking from the ‘drill baby drill croud’.

    The GOP/TP bullying and your post it makes the point that the President’s decision was spot on.

  • Lee Church Lee Church 1 year ago

    I’m belittling people who should know better.

    And yes, I get it.. the GOP/TP (and that includes you) needs to turn everything back against anyone who stand up for the President.

    1) political tourette syndrome is only belittling folks who engage in it. It doesn’t belittle the rare affliction at all. It is it’s own affliction. Just as Lyme disease is not a slight at lyme CT. Your attack is lame (and completely predictable).

    2) Sure do know it (and TRP has coal, gas, and nuclear power plants as well as a lot of pipelines, etc.). Of course we could catalog a bunch of stuff and cite the TRP balance sheet, annual reports etc.. but it has nothing to do with the authors bogus claim that the President doesn’t support pipelines (The President supports pipelines.). If you listen to the latest quarterly conference call, TRP is not concerned about it, and will simply reroute the pipeline and reapply. You can say TRP is lying.. but if you take TRP at their word.. well then we have a double standard.. what else is new.

    Moving on, your assertion is the the GOP/TP (which you omit to mention in your post.. just nameless passive voice “it was…”) ‘forced his hand’.

    It’s interesting you believe your own ‘reason’ for the GOP/TP’s action, and assign a reason the the President’s action. I highly doubt you are as all-knowing as you claim… but that’s a hunch, but given your poor batting average so far, it’s a good hunch. what is interesting, is you ascribe a reason for the GOP/TP based on a guess that they know what the President’s future thinking would be, and given you don’t believe anything the President says, how on earth would the GOP/TP know what the President will think in the future.. and how do you know what the GOP/TP thinks it knows about what the President might do (or not do in the future)? Geez.. you are so wrapped in a pretzel it’s hard to write the lame lack of thinking down.

    So you go on, and ascribe a future action that wasn’t taken, and ascribe a reason to it.. with what support? In contrast, I can support the GOP/TP tactics of trying to deny any positive outcomes to the President.. do you really want to go there?

    And with two final swings and misses.. your “hash pipe” line is a wider miss.. I don’t drink, don’t smoke.. and don’t do drugs.. you are again mistaken. And I am well past college age.. another swing and a miss.

    Well, those are three strikes for you.. geez.. you GOP/TPers are aweful.. You make stuff up, and when called out on it, have nothing.. absolutely nothing.

    You folks will go on making up a strawman President and then complaining about him.

    You are not even in the national discussion anymore and the GOP/TP are becoming closer to extinction by the day.

    I will also note that several postings try to mimic my phrases in a lame attempt to make an ‘aha, gotcha’ post, however you fail miserably.

    You folks can’t even copycat well.

    So to recap.. you said.. um.. nothing at all.. You cited a number (miles of pipeline.. now there IS a relative statistic in unilaterally assigning what the President was thinking.. wow persuasive argument there – NOT!). The idea that you can simply trot out meaningless numbers and use them as if they are some sort of bludgeon is silly. So I reply with a digit 5.. aha.. counter that! (ridiculous).

    And yes, there are pipelines running all over the place. and we need more. The President agrees, however the state of Nebraska thinks that running it through sensitive watersheds are not a good idea. The President was right to deny the permit as the objections from NE were voiced after the previous studies (they were not approvals.. they were studies and recommendations.. the state department never approved the keystone XL through the watershed of NE, despite your spin to suggest otherwise).

    Though the GOP/TP talks a good game about limited federal government and about state’s rights.. when it comes to actual state’s rights..(such as Nebraska having an objection), you are silent.. Why was there not one GOP/TP complaining that the pipeline should respect NE’s rights?

    And it’s telling that you don’t object to the separation of powers, of Congress and the executive branch. In this case you (and the GOP/TP) are all for trampling over of executive branch negotiating treaties and the role of the state department. You would be citing the constitution and yelling about how it’s not respected.. etc. etc….

    We get it.. and please.. get some treatment for your political tourette syndrome.. Just yelling out GOP/TP talking points (as the author of the article does) isn’t healthy; it adds to your cognative dissonance and shows the Dunning/Kruger effect.

    give it a rest. You don’t like the President.. just leave it at that – you don’t have to also make a public fool of yourself.

    And please people.. stop trying to parrot my phrases.. it doesn’t work. Branch out.. think!

    And for the record, I’m for the pipeline (not through the watershed, but for it), and the President supports pipelines, despite what the GOP/TPers say.