Newt Gingrich on Keystone XL Pipeline, global warming

Newt Gingrich correctly identified global warming as one reason why environmentalists oppose the Keystone XL Pipeline, but did not say how he would address this concern in a speech to voters gathered at a December 28, 2011 town hall meeting Southbridge Mall in Mason City, Iowa.

Transcript of Gingrich’s remarks:

Take the XL Keystone Pipeline.

20,000 jobs immediately.

Billions of dollars of oil gone through Houston, which is the largest refinery complex in the world.

A generation of money coming into the U.S. from Canadian oil on the way to worldwide distribution.

The President postpones it, doesn’t want to make a decision.

Why? Because his environmental extremists are against building a pipeline for a very abstract reason. 

It’s not because they’re worried about pipelines.

We build pipelines all the time.

They don’t want Canadian oil on the market because of the indirect byproduct that they see in terms of global warming.

Therefore they are trying to keep Canadian oil in Canada. 

Now here’s the problem.

It’s one thing if you have an administration that can’t play chess. 

It’s another thing if you have an administration that can’t play checkers.

But if you have an administration that can’t play tic-tac-toe, you’re in deep trouble.

The Canadians are not trapped by Barack Obama.

The Canadians can take Chinese money to build the very same pipeline straight west across the Rockies, put it in Vancouver.

Not a penny will come to the United States.

Not a job will be created in the United States. 

The environmentalists will lose because the oil is going to be used by the Chinese.

And that’s what the President’s faced with.

And I don’t think he understands it.

So he goes to Brazil and he says to the Brazilians, “I really want to be your best customer.”

He praises the Brazilians for drilling offshore, which he stops us from doing.

He tells them how glad he is we can guarantee $2 billion in equipment for a George Soros invested company.

And then he praises them and says, “I’d like to be your best customer.”

This is exactly backward and every Iowa farmer knows this.

We do not want the President of the United States to be a purchasing agent for foreign countries.

We want the President of the United States to be salesman for American products. 

If we don’t sell American agricultural products worldwide, we will have depression in farm country. 

So we need a President who goes out and opens up markets for American agricultural products because we produce more than we use at home.

A complete video of Newt Gingrich's town hall meeting in Mason City, Iowa is available on C-Span.

Photo of Newt Gingrich by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons