XL oil to be hot button issue

The issues of global warming, pollution and even green alternatives have become popular issues in today’s society.
What with movies like The Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth— the film documenting Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a world-wide problem—global warming has been skyrocketed into the spotlight, and for good reason.
Global warming is a huge environmental issue that is shaping the future of our world. People everywhere are buying Priuses, Leafs, and every other form of hybrid car available to cut down on fuel consumption and reduce emissions.
Major interest groups have popped up in an attempt to save the environment for our future generations and all that good stuff.
But recently the issue of global warming has made itself a bit of a nuisance to President Barrack Obama. It seems that the decision of whether to grant the permit for Keystone XL oil pipeline is going to be the defining environmental issue for Obama leading up to the 2012 election.
The $13 billion Keystone pipeline system will play an important role in linking a secure supply of Canadian crude oil with the largest refining markets in the United States.
So the question for Obama now becomes whether to approve this pipeline and provide America with a less foreign supply of oil and risk demoralizing the voters he needs to win reelection in 2012, or oppose the prospect and side with the nation’s environmental groups to try to secure the environmental vote coming into the election season.
What to do? What to do? Choices, choices.
I am by no means a tree hugger, but at the same time, I do not in any way, shape or form turn a blind eye to the issue of global warming. I have asthma, I fully appreciate the on-going efforts to reduce emissions and clean up the air. Thank you, environmental groups.
But at the same time, for those of us who did not know oil prices were going to go through the roof the past few years and made the mistake of purchasing a sport utility vehicle or a truck, gas prices are a bit of a concern.
More than a bit of concern; to date it takes around $50 to fill up the tank of my Xterra on a good day. As a college student, I just do not have the money to continue to pay $3.50 a gallon for gas.
Nor do many other American citizens. We are in a recession, the unemployment rate is still higher than it should be, and penny pinching has been commenced by multitudes of American families.
Would it not be more prudent for our government to try to help out a little more by granting permission for the Keystone XL oil pipeline? Not only would this lessen our dependence on foreign oil, but it would break the U.S. of some of the chains bonding us to high, monopolized prices for barrels of oil from the Middle East.
Instead of paying outrageous prices for oil from halfway around the world, the U.S. could have crude oil from our friendly neighbors to the north and use the machinery we already have to turn it into a source of petroleum.
Maybe this could help cut down the high costs of gas prices throughout the United States because as gas prices increase the hurt that Americans feel at the gas pump increases also.
Mr. President, I can understand your dilemma; the environmental vote is important. I’m sure there is another way to appease the environmental vote. We could plant some trees?
Call me selfish, or a horrible person, but how many of us will be able to afford to go on with our daily lives when gas prices jump to $5-a-gallon and minimum wage stays the same?