Majority Of Americans Favor Keystone XL Pipeline

By Susan Duclos


Gallup has released the results of their annual Environmental survey and found that a majority of Americans favor moving forward with the Keystone XL Pipeline which Barack Obama has refused to approve.

57 percent of Americans believe Obama should approve Keystone, which is a pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada to multiple locations throughout the United States. 29 percent of Americans do not want Obama to approve Keystone and 14 percent have no opinion.

That numbers changes greatly among more informed Americans with 78 percent of those following the issue closely wanting Keystone approved and only 22 percent taking the opposite stance.



Gallup's Bottom Line:

President Obama this week set out on a two-day multistate trip to promote his energy strategy, including reducing America's dependence on foreign oil. As part of his trip, Obama on Thursday will visit Cushing, Okla., the place where the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline would begin. There he will announce that his administration will expedite the permit process for the southern half of the pipeline, which does not need his specific approval.

TransCanada says this part of the pipeline will help it relieve a bottleneck of oil in Oklahoma. But Republicans in Congress have already criticized the president's yet-to-be-made announcement, with a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner telling MSNBC it is an "attempt to take credit" for the pipeline, and that the southern part "is being built in spite of the president, not because of him."

Regardless, the northern part of the pipeline, which does require the president's approval, has still not been approved. The majority of Americans, though, say they want the government to allow the pipeline to be built. So, most would likely support any attempt by the president to move the pipeline forward.

Emphasis mine.

Barack Obama has attempted to justify his refusal to approve the full pipeline by claiming Republicans boxed him with an arbitrary timeline but the application for the Keystone Pipeline has been in the works since the beginning of 2009.

Obama has also actively lobbied Senate Democrats to reject proposals that would expedite the building of the full pipeline.

A significant portion of Obama's base, the environmentalist part, has been lobbying Obama to reject Keystone and critics maintain that Obama's refusal to approve the full pipeline is political in nature since this is his reelection campaign season and proof of Obama putting his reelection campaign ahead of the best interest of the country and the will of the majority of Americans.

.