All of the Above? Really?

If you watched President Obama's  State of the Union address tuesday night, you heard him talk much about the need for developing new sources of energy.  The word energy itself appeared 23 times in the speech as the President, highlighting the need to boost merica's role in developing new sources of energy to secure America's energy future. 

But don't feel bad if you feel are bit confused by the president's call for an "all of the above" energy strategy -- just one week after denying the Keystone XL pipeline.  

His actions on Keystone simply don't jibe with this statement from last night's address: 

"This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy – a strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs."

So why, then, did he reject the Keystone XL?   

Keystone stood ready to create 20,000 American jobs immediately, with tens of thousands more jobs that would have been created as a byproduct of the economic activity produced by it.  Approving Keystone would have paved the way to importing oil safely procured from Canada's oil sands, strengthening our relationship with our friend and ally to the north.  Canada is already the biggest seller of oil to the United States, and this comes without out the uncertainty of dealing with the tumultuous Middle East region.  Keystone would grow this mutually beneficial relationship.

If President Obama really believes in what he said in the State of the Union, it only makes it all that more confounding that his administration would block the Keystone project as they did last week.

In denying approval of the Keystone XL project, President Obama is ignoring the recommendations of his own Jobs Council, which proposed: 

"[P]olicies that facilitate the safe, thoughtful and timely development of pipeline, transmission and distribution projects are necessary to facilitate the delivery of America’s fuel and electricity and maintain the reliability of our nation’s energy system."

That's the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Both President Obama and his Jobs Council say we need an “all-of-the-above” strategy for energy production that also produces job creation.  

Apparently, "all of the above" means everything except Keystone.