By Erin McBride - August 8, 2012 | Tickers: CEO, NXY, TRP | 0 Comments

Erin is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

Who wins every time the environmentalists delay the TransCanada (NYSE: TRP) Keystone XL Pipeline?

China.

Canada has so much oil they want to sell it off. The United States is very dependent on oil. And yet, somehow the U.S. just can't seem to get its act together enough to buy it from its closest neighbors (or drill its own oil).

On the other hand, China is willing to go all the way across the Pacific Ocean to get the oil that the U.S. could have had first. This makes little to no sense on any financial or national security level.

What is China going to do with all of that Canadian oil? Sell it. And Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the Senates number three Democrat, thinks that the Chinese should be forced to provide fair access for U.S. companies to its domestic markets.

Because that makes perfectly good sense- don't buy it yourself, and then let one of your biggest competitors on all world markets and threats to national security buy it and sell it back to you! Senator Schumer, please check your Harvard degrees, and retake simple business math.

The state-run Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (NYSE: CEO) has offered $15.1 billion for Canadian firm Nexen (NYSE: NXY)and its highly coveted stakes in the Alberta tar sands. The deal would give China access to North American energy expertise and resources. And it gives Canada much-needed capital to better develop the tar sands.

But Nexen has American holdings, which means the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) is allowed to meddle in the deal. Senator Schumer is expected to interfere with the deal unless the U.S. gets some access to the Chinese holdings.

Read more here:
U.S. Politics Means China Success for TransCanada and Keystone Pipeline