Energy

Bill Clinton: ‘We should embrace’ Keystone pipeline [VIDEO]

Nicholas Ballasy Senior Video Reporter
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Former President Bill Clinton said the federal government should embrace the Keystone XL pipeline that the Obama administration rejected last month. Clinton also said that one of the “best things” about being out of office is “you can say whatever the heck you want.”

“One of the most amazing things to me about this Keystone pipeline deal is that they ever filed that route in the first place since they could’ve gone around the Nebraska Sandhills and avoided most of the danger, no matter how imagined, to the Ogallala with a different route, which I presume we’ll get now, because the extra cost of running it is infinitesimal compared to the revenues that will be generated over a long period of time,” he said Wednesday at the Energy Innovation Summit.

“So, I think we should embrace it and develop a stakeholder-driven system of high standards for doing the work.”

Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would have to approve the pipeline since it crosses international borders.

In his remarks, Mr. Clinton mentioned the advantages of not occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“One of the best things about being a former president is you can say whatever the heck you want,” he said. “One of the saddest things about being a former president is that nobody necessarily cares what you say anymore but you can say what you want.”

Toward the end of his speech, Clinton joked, “We are left with a time of real excitement here that probably won’t make the front page of the Washington Post tomorrow unless I say something outrageous which will embarrass the Secretary of State.”

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