President Obama announced he was rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline project Wednesday, blaming Republicans in Congress for forcing him to make a decision. The pipeline would have transported up to 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada to Oklahoma and Texas. “This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people,” Obama said in a statement. “I’m disappointed that Republicans …
In the wake of President Obama’s decision to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has scheduled a hearing to review legislation that would restart the project, and give oversight responsibility to an agency the bill’s proponents say is less politically motivated than the White House. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be invited to testify at the hearing, scheduled for Jan. 25, to discuss her department’s environmental review procedures. The hearing will focus on a bill introduced by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), …
A District of Columbia city council member is calling on the city’s taxicab commission to allow competition to its “mediocre and unreliable” taxi services in the wake of a sting operation aimed at shutting down an innovative car service that officials say violates a number of city laws. If current law prohibits such competition, stated Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), the law should be amended to allow for “improve[d] transportation options for residents and visitors alike.” Cheh’s statement comes days after city officials conducted a sting operation on Uber, an …
The White House’s Friday evening Solyndra document dump revealed a pair of interesting facts that should not be lost in the news cycle’s three-day-weekend lull. Neither is a smoking gun, but both will likely fuel the fire of an investigation the administration would rather see die out. According to internal emails released on Friday, the White House was informed that Solyndra planned on announcing layoffs mere days before the 2010 midterm elections. “No es bueno” – not good – exclaimed a White House staffer on October 27, two days after …
Six conservative U.S. senators voiced concerns Friday over the substance and procedural context of controversial legislation to block Internet piracy, noting potential economic damages and free speech restrictions the legislation might impose. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Tom Coburn (R-OK), sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on Friday expressing their concerns. The letter, whose signatories include the ranking Republicans on the Budget, Finance, and Judiciary Committees, warns of “breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity …
A new poll shows that, despite attempts by liberal protesters and politicians to inject class resentment into the national debate, Americans, by and large, remain unconcerned by income inequality. Gallup reports that only 2 percent of Americans list the “divide between rich and poor” as the most important economic issue facing the country. Those findings come from an open-ended survey, meaning respondents were not confined to a pre-selected group of responses. Unemployment and the national debt top the list, but all told, a full 17 economic issues rank higher in …
Calling the president’s illegal non-recess appointments “an escalation in a pattern of contempt for the elected representatives of the American people,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, dismissed a Justice Department memo on Thursday that sought to lend retroactive constitutional weight to the president’s move. Grassley hinted at Senate “action to check and balance” the president’s power grab, though he declined to go into specifics. The DOJ Office of Legal Counsel’s memo, also debunked by Heritage’s Todd Gaziano, claims that pro forma Senate sessions do not …
One of the officials President Obama illegally appointed to the National Labor Relations Board advanced policies in his position at a major labor union that hindered efforts to reform corrupt union locals. Incoming NLRB member Richard Griffin, formerly the general counsel for the International Union of Operating Engineers, pushed a union rule in 2007 that barred union leadership campaign websites from being made available to the general public. We spoke with Mike Quigley, a member of IUOE Local 150, about his experience challenging a corrupt union official, and the difficulties …
U.S. senators never got a chance to question or vote on President Obama’s illegal appointees to the National Labor Relations Board. Now that they’ve been installed at the board, however, senators and their staff will at least have the chance to meet the individuals they were prevented from properly vetting. The NLRB informed congressional staffers Wednesday that they would be holding an informal “meet and greet” with the three non-recess appointed board members on Thursday at 3 p.m., according to an email from the NLRB’s special counsel for congressional and …
Whatever his other qualities, outgoing White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley seemed to understand that punitive environmental policies entail tradeoffs. When one environmentalist explained the health risks of increased air pollutants, Daley asked, rhetorically, “What are the health impacts of unemployment?” That sense that the economic damage wrought by environmental regulation must not be ignored has been sorely missing from the president’s economic policies (though Daley reportedly tempered the president’s knee-jerk regulatory agenda). With him gone, the president is reverting to his old “have your cake and eat it …
