Why didn't Obama support the keystone pipeline?

[LiberalAndProud]

41. Perhaps you are not familiar with the Ogallala Aquifer.

Make no mistake. You screw with the Ogallala Aquifer and you screw with this nation's heartbeat. Twenty percent of the irrigated farmland in the United States depends upon it. Pumping the water from it is all that has kept the Dust Bowl from coming back, year after year. Any damage to it fundamentally changes the lives of the people who depend on it, their personal economies, the overall national economy, and what we can grow to feed ourselves. Absent the aquifer, and the nation's breadbasket goes back to being a prairie, vast grasslands that the people who first crossed them referred to as a desert. You end up with dry-land corn and some dry-land wheat. And the aquifer is far easier to empty than it is to fill. The technology to fully exploit it has existed only since the 1950's, and portions of it are already dangerously low. It won't be fully recharged until the next Ice Age.

Water is the next big fight in this country. By now, we are used to the big fights over energy reserves, over coal and oil. There are even some new ones, over fracking for natural gas and over things like the XL pipeline, which we will get to shortly. But there haven't been serious fights over water for a while. Now, they seem to be coming thick and fast. A report by the Congressional Budget Office as far back as 1997 said that, particularly in the West, conflicts over water would take many forms — farmers vs. cities, sportsmen vs. developers, environmentalists vs. practically everyone else. The report concluded:

First and foremost, western rivers provide water to agriculture to grow crops. They also help cities meet municipal and industrial needs for water and generate electricity. Other benefits that rivers provide — such as habitat for fish and wildlife, recreation, and cultural values for Native Americans — were historically ignored in the water equation but increasingly are considered legitimate and valuable uses. Demand for water by existing agricultural and urban users outstrips available supplies in many cases, however, so demand for water for public purposes or for increased urban supplies necessarily conflicts with existing patterns of water use.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/ogallala-aquifer-6531527

He made the right call. But you just keep on keeping on, bless your heart.