With hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spewing out of the Keystone Pipeline Thursday, everyone who’s ever supported the project is now suddenly in the spotlight.
No one is feeling the heat more than President Donald Trump. Not only was it Trump who approved construction on the pipeline as one of his first acts in office, he’s been behind the project almost from the beginning.
Back in 2015, the Obama administration faced pressure to authorize construction on the massive trans-continental project that would bring the oceans of new oil from Canada and North Dakota down to U.S. refineries in the gulf of Mexico. Then presidential candidate Trump pounded President Obama for holding firm and refusing to bend over for big oil.
In November of that year, Trump fired off this beauty of a tweet, one he’s almost certainly regretting today:
So sad that Obama rejected Keystone Pipeline. Thousands of jobs, good for the environment, no downside!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2015
I guess 50,000 barrels worth of oil (and counting) don’t constitute a downside.
