As someone who lives on a beach and doesn’t know a single climate scientist or climatologist, all I do know is that I have put my nose next to the exhaust pipe of my car and cannot imagine any good coming from it.  It is nasty stuff, indeed!  That is the extent of my environmental analysis.

You would think President Obama would have already killed the Keystone Pipeline.  However, the environmental impact study showed only negligible environment impact from the construction of the 1,700 mile pipeline and subsequent transportation of 700,000 barrels of tar-sands every day.  Besides, a $5.4 billion dollar infrastructure project would be good for the economy.  Did I mention a boatload of jobs would also be created?  All this makes the president reluctant to kill the project.  But, is that the real reason?

BusinessWeek has an interesting perspective on it.  To understand our decision-making process, one needs to study the decision-making process of OPEC nations.  After all, we are one of the world’s largest producer and soon may be a significant exporter, not an importer, of oil.  We are not vulnerable like Europe and Asia.

In the OPEC nations, government is largely an extension of the energy or natural resource companies.  In the U.S. alone, oil companies spend $140 million each year on lobbying alone.  Why would they spend so much if they are not getting anything for it?  They have invested $365 million directly into Federal elections over the last 25 years.

The conclusion is that Obama would love to kill the project but cannot stand up to the oil company lobbyists.

Now, I wonder what would happen if Putin and Assad fired their army and hired a bunch of  lobbyists . . .