Hoekstra: Obama Delaying Keystone Decision 'For Electoral Purposes'

The Obama administration's decision to give agencies more time to review the Keystone XL oil pipeline, pushing a final decision on the project beyond the midterm elections, is a political ploy that will hurt the nation, former Rep. Pete Hoekstra says.

"The reason that Europe is powerless to act against Russia is it has put itself in a position where it is dependent on Russia for its natural gas," Hoekstra said during a panel discussion on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"In the United States, we not only could be energy dependent, we could be setting up a supply line to allies around the world, to fledgling democracies, to get them off of the hook of Russian energy," Hoekstra said.

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But instead, the Obama administration has continued to sit on the pipeline, fearing political consequences, and has a long backlog of applications for new liquefied natural gas terminals. Approval of those terminals could increase exports of liquefied natural gas to European nations that currently depend on Russia for those imports.

"This administration for five, six years has sat on the biggest opportunity the United States has ever had to foster democracy, economic growth, free markets, making America an energy powerhouse," he said.

"And one more time – what are they going to do? Delay it for electoral purposes," he said.

Radio host Kevin Jackson, author of "The Big Black Lie," said the nation's energy policies are in turmoil.

"I don't get how our policy around oil has become such a bad situation, particularly when you look in light of Obama's green energy policy [being] a complete failure," he said.

"And even though I am pro-green energy, and most conservatives are, we want to see it done a little bit more financially soundly than what the White House was proposing."

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