Keystone XL

The executive action canceling the Keystone XL pipeline showcases the problems government has with forming allegiances with special interest groups.

Keystone XL is an expansion of an existing pipeline, called Keystone, that carries Canadian crude into the U.S. It was first proposed in July 2008 by TC Energy Corp. The line, which is now partially built but not operating, was eventually expected to transport 830,000 barrels of oil 1,210 miles from the Canadian oil sands to Steele City, Neb., where it would link to existing pipelines heading to Gulf Coast refineries. Environmentalist special interest groups opposed the pipeline because they feared spills--i.e. what happens if everything is not perfect--and, probably more importantly,  the oil comes from the high greenhouse energy source Canadian sands.

Now Biden has stopped work on it.

That decision makes the environmental special interest group happy. But it costs 10,000 union jobs. 10,000. And it makes the Canadians very unhappy because a market they have developed that wants their product has been disrupted by government fiat.

So, what has been achieved? The fear of a pipeline rupture has been decreased but, when one is concerned about things working perfectly one barely knows where to start. Or stop. Cars catch fire, planes fall down. What to do? And certainly, little progress is made by drying the Canadian sands up when China is building coal-fired plants hand over fist.

Somehow the symbolism of the pipeline was more important to the politicians than the 10,00 workers, Americans getting energy or Canada. On the surface, that is hard to explain. But it also promises other hard-to-explain rules and favors that will certainly come to compensate those who were offended or angered by the original action. So the initial narrow effect of pointed political favor ripples into larger and larger areas and creates a huge grotesque formed by very small grotesques.

Ah, politicians.