Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said that President Obama refuses to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline because he is "enthralled to left-wing radical environmentalists."
Cotton's remarks were made in the senator's first-ever interview on Periscope with David Ray, who worked as the communications director on Cotton's 2014 campaign before taking his current position as state director of the Arkansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity.
Asked about the pipeline, Cotton told Ray that Congress had passed a bill approving its construction, "but President Obama vetoed it, because he's enthralled to left-wing radical environmentalists."
"Every environmental study has said the pipeline is going to be environmentally sound, it's going to help provide more jobs for Americans, it's a key piece of infrastructure for Canada, one of our strongest allies in the world, one of our closest trading partners," Cotton argued. "It should have been built years ago."
"President Obama says that he's going to make a decision by the end of his tenure," Cotton continued. "I suspect that he's waiting until the end of his tenure so he can decline the permit."
"It could always be resurrected under a Republican president," Cotton explained. "But it really just goes to show, in my opinion, an anti-growth, anti-capitalist mindset, that a perfectly safe, modern pipeline wouldn't be built, at a time when North America has a chance to be the world's leading energy provider."