OPINION:
President Obama is all about free trade. He waxes eloquent about the rewards in the global marketplace and warns against protectionist notions that have sometimes dominated the 2016 presidential campaign. But when faced with a choice between unencumbered commerce and his climate change agenda, the president throws in with the radical environmentalists. He has favorite greens and they’re not necessarily on the back nine.
In Ottawa last week for the so-called “Three Amigos” summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, Mr. Obama touted the benefits of the new Trans-Pacific Partnership, encompassing 12 Pacific Rim nations. At the same time, he joined Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto in signing an ambitious pledge to generate half of North America’s electricity from sources free of carbon-dioxide emissions within 10 years.
Just days earlier, however, TransCanada, Inc., a Calgary-based firm that had sought permission to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast, filed a request for arbitration under the terms of NAFTA, charging that the U.S. government violated the treaty when Mr. Obama issued a final refusal last November to approve the project. TransCanada is seeking $15 billion in damages. If the law suit succeeds and the United States is forced to pay up, the nation would shoulder a hefty price for the president’s refusal to honor his commitment to free trade.
In its complaint, TransCanada pointed out that “the [U.S.] State Department had issued five environmental impact statements between 2008 and 2015, all of which concluded that the Keystone XL Pipeline would not significantly increase emissions. The State Department reiterated that conclusion for a sixth time … in November 2015.” Nonetheless, these favorable assessments were overruled “because President Obama wanted to prove his administration’s environmental credentials to a vocal activist constituency that asserted that the pipeline would lead to increased production and consumption of crude oil and, therefore, significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions.”
The president’s “progressive” agenda calls for shifting a larger portion of energy generation to wind, solar, nuclear and biofuels sources, and his fellow North American leaders are game with that. Canada currently generates more than 80 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, and Mexico generates 20 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power. Despite Mr. Obama’s support for renewables as the key to his climate change scheme, the United States still only generates 33 percent of its electricity from green sources, and most of that comes from politically radioactive nuclear plants. For the “Three Amigos” to reach their goal of 50 percent of electricity from cleaner sources, they will need to provide billions in subsidies for new projects, which will mean higher taxes and larger electric bills.
That’s nothing new — the president’s Climate Action Plan has already committed the nation to a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. And what can Americans expect to get for their trouble? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a reduction in temperature by the year 2100 of one hundredth of one degree Celsius.
In his preference for all things green, Mr. Obama has colored the Keystone XL pipeline gone. If elected to succeed him, Hillary Clinton can be counted on to perpetuate the president’s anti-fossil fuel policies. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, promises to revive the pipeline project and with the oil, pump jobs back into the flagging American economy. He shares the view of many Americans that a green agenda is best tended on the golf course.
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