The Claim:

Obama prevented Keystone XL from being built because he doesn't care about creating jobs.

The Truth:

That's true, of course -- just see his dismal record on job creation -- but while researching the Keystone XL debacle, we came upon another disturbing conclusion.

First, the background: TransCanada, a Canadian oil company, currently operates the Keystone pipeline, which terminates in Cushing, Nebraska. We can thank TransCanada for building this pipeline, as it brings plenty of cheap Canadian crude oil into the US.

Fortunately for the US -- and unfortunately for TransCanada and the Canadian oil industry -- it's been too much of a good thing. Simply put, there's too much Canadian oil in the US.

When there's a glut of something, prices go down. And, the oversupply of oil in the US midwest was keeping prices below market value (which is why gas prices are lower in the Midwest than in many other areas). TransCanada, being a for-profit, capitalist company, smartly realized that they needed to get their oil away from the Midwest, and off to markets that will buy it for a higher price. This, in turn, will address the oversupply in the Midwest, allowing TransCanada to sell its oil there at closer to competitive market pricing.

This is the purpose of Keystone XL: it extends all the way down to the deepwater ports of the Gulf Coast, where it can be processed and shipped to markets that are currently being served by Venezuela, which, as we all know, is run by Communist dictator Hugo Chavez.

From TransCanada's 2008 permit application for KeyStone XL:

Existing markets for Canadian heavy crude, principally PADD II [U.S. Midwest], are currently oversupplied, resulting in price discounting for Canadian heavy crude oil. Access to the USGC [U.S. Gulf Coast] via the Keystone XL Pipeline is expected to strengthen Canadian crude oil pricing in [the Midwest] by removing this oversupply. This is expected to increase the price of heavy crude to the equivalent cost of imported crude. The resultant increase in the price of heavy crude is estimated to provide an increase in annual revenue to the Canadian producing industry in 2013 of US $2 billion to US $3.9 billion.

This is all very straightforward. Approving KeyStone XL allows us to strengthen our ties with the Canadian oil industry, supports capitalism (an increasingly rare thing in this country), and -- best of all -- will create a few thousand temporary jobs; jobs that our economy needs. While independent analysis has shown that gas prices would go up by $0.10 to $0.20 in the Midwest, remember that drivers in the Midwest are already paying some of the lowest gas prices in the country, due to the oversupply of Canadian oil. While critics have claimed that raising the prices that farmers pay for oil will cause the farmers to greedily pad the pricing of produce, this can easily be addressed by increasing USDA subsidies paid to farmers in the region.

So why is Obama against this?

Well, guess which city has a major terminal at which much of the oil from the current Keystone pipeline is processed: that's right... Chicago.

Obama is ignoring the needs of TransCanada -- costing them up to $3.9 billion in annual revenue, risking a diplomatic crisis with Canada, and halting the potential creation of hundreds or even thousands of temporary jobs in the US... just so he can keep gas prices down for his friends in his former city.

Shameful.