It merely provoked angry locals into questioning why so much money had been spent on a seemingly irrelevant bit of land reclamation ratherthan on themselves.
And yet one has to wonder whether the Obama administration would have invested so much time and effort if the refinery had been in a red state ratherthan a swing-state.
He questioned why the president had spent so much time and political energy pushing that reform early in his tenure ratherthan repairing the economy and creating jobs.
Many of them had made themselves easy targets by concentrating too much on the financial minutiae of future plans ratherthan looking at the broader picture.
Whilst this and other details made for many uncomfortable moments for Mr Hunt he looked much more at ease when defending the way he handled the BSkyB bid - insisting his decision had angered ratherthan pleased the Murdochs - and that he had acted in an impartial way when given the job.