President Obama said Monday that the Keystone pipeline and other such fossil-fuel development projects would make Earth “uninhabitable.”
“We’ve got to lead by example, because ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of the Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable, then we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them,” Mr. Obama told cheering grassroots supporters at a gathering in Washington.
He said one of the reasons that the State Department rejected the Keystone pipeline last week was because “approving that project would have undercut our global leadership.”
“As long as I’m president and as long as you’re out there organizing, America’s going to hold ourselves to the same high standards with which we want to hold the rest of the world,” Mr. Obama said.
The announcement on Keystone last week ended a seven-year federal review process, with the administration rejecting the proposed pipeline from Canada largely on environmental grounds. Environmentalists opposed the project, while labor union and oil-and-gas sector groups supported it.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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