President Obama Promises To Speed Up Keystone Pipeline Southern Production

As gas prices have risen sharply over the last several months President Obama has drawn some heavy negative criticisms for his veto of the Keystone pipeline project and now the President has promised to speed up the approval process for at least part of that project.

Speaking on Friday the President defended his oil policy but pledged to speed up the approval process for the southern leg of the pipeline. That southern leg spans from Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico and it is expected to eliminate a bottleneck in the region.

Earlier in the year Obama was criticized for vetoing the part of the pipeline that runs from Oklahoma to Canada.

At the same time the President continues to stress that US production of crude oil is not going to be enough to send prices plummeting back down.

In the meantime Republicans are criticizing the President’s attempts as nothing more than a publicity stunt. North Dakota’s Sen. John Hoeven says of the President’s newest maneuver:

“He’s taking credit for going forward on the only portion of the pipeline that he doesn’t need to approve … This is literally straddling both sides of the issue.”

The presidents push to get production of the southern part of the Keystone pipeline underway in the meantime has drawn criticism from environmental groups who worry that rushing production could have undue consequences on the surrounding environment.

Here’s a video of Obama’s Keystone plans:

[iframe src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/MmK4-HJQkkQ” width=”560″ height=”315″]

Do you think the keystone pipeline is magically going to make gas prices fall or does the United States need a new approach to energy consumption?