Obama made no mention of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline at Tuesday night’s State of the union. Instead, he focused on tackling ‘climate change’:
“For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change,” he said as legislators stood and applauded – as they traditionally do dozens of times during the State of the Union.
“Yes, it’s true that no single event makes a trend …. We can choose to believe that superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science _ and act before it’s too late.”
Obama added it’s possible to combat ‘climate change’ while spurring economic revitalization, proposing an Energy Security Trust that will foster new research and technology to shift cars and trucks off oil for good.
“The good news is, we can make meaningful progress on this issue while driving strong economic growth,” he told lawmakers. “I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change …. But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.”
Obama vowed to direct his cabinet to come up with executive actions that can be taken now to “reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”
The U.S. State Department will make a decision on Keystone’s latest permit application in the months to come.