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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on February 07, 2011, 05:20:13 AM
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Big Green groups tell Obama to tell Canada to Drop Dead
Washington Examiner ^ | 02/05/11 | Mark Tapscott
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A coalition of 89 Big Green environmental groups is urging President Obama to reject Canada's efforts to secure U.S. approval for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring millions of barrels of oil extracted from Canadian shale formations.
In their letter, the anti-oil groups based their case on these arguments:
"When filled to capacity, Keystone XL would import up to 900,000 barrels per day of the world’s dirtiest form of oil and open a new economic drain to send more of our money to Canada.
"The pipeline would drive further destruction of Canada’s boreal forest, bring the threat of dangerous oil spills through America’s heartland, exacerbate air quality problems in communities surrounding the refineries that the pipeline would service, and significantly increase the carbon intensity of U.S. transportation fuel, which would undercut the emissions reductions achieved by increasing U.S. automobile efficiency.
"Keystone XL would transport some of the most corrosive and acidic oil in the world through sensitive lands and aquifers that provide drinking water and a way of life for millions.
"Already, TransCanada is using eminent domain against farmers and landowners who do not want a dangerous pipeline on their own properties. It’s time to stop giving a free pass to oil companies to increase profits at the expense of Americans.
"TransCanada’s own analysis even says the “strategy [with Keystone XL] would be intended to raise the price” of Canadian oil, especially in the Midwest, to increase oil company profits. America does not need this dangerous and expensive pipeline."
You can read the full letter here on Politico. It's release was timed to coincide with Canadian Prime Minister Stephan Harper's meeting Friday with President Obama. The issue of the pipeline approvals was expected to be a major topic of discussion at that gathering.
The letter from the anti-pipeline coalition drew a sharp response from Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, who accused the group of opposing the pipeline as part of their continuing efforts to force the costs of fossil fuel energy resources for American consumers higher:
“Canada is our nation’s number one trading partner. Tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S. have been created by development of our ally and neighbor Canada's oil sands.
"As our greatest supplier of petroleum products, we rely every day on the affordable, reliable energy that flows from the north to fuel our cars, heat our homes, and keep our economy running.
"While the Obama Administration refuses to issue permits here in the United States to develop our vast energy resources, relying on Canada for oil imports prevents our further dependence on more hostile foreign nations where civil unrest and dictatorships are more likely to disrupt production.
“Unfortunately, anti-energy groups here in the U.S. are treating Canada as if they are one of those hostile foreign nations. In their letter to President Obama, they urged him to prevent the Keystone XL Pipeline project from being built.
"Disregarding the mutually beneficial nature of the project, the well-paying jobs it would create, and the badly-needed economic boon it would provide for our suffering economy, these anti-energy activists condemn the pipeline as ‘dangerous’ and ‘unnecessary’.
"Instead, they claim that expanded mass transit and forcing Americans to buy electric cars is a more sensible solution.
“The opposition of environmentalists to the Keystone XL pipeline underscores their desire to increase the price of energy and increase our use of energy from unstable regimes.
"The Department of Energy recently reported that with the Keystone XL delivering oil to America, we could dramatically reduce our oil imports from the Middle East, which is exactly why environmentalists want to stop the Pipeline.
"We need affordable, reliable energy. The Keystone XL pipeline would provide that. We applaud Prime Minister Harper for standing up for Americans and trying to bolster our energy supplies.
"Now the only thing that stands in the way of providing affordable, reliable energy to Americans is the Obama administration and their continuing war on affordable, reliable energy.”
Expect this issue to take on major importance in the months ahead as the effects of the Obama moratorium on drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for roughly a third of all U.S. oil and natural gas supplies, begins to be felt at the consumer level in the form of significantly higher gasoline prices.
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Harper presses Obama to approve Keystone oilsands pipeline
By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News February 4, 2011 StoryPhotos ( 2 )
The 3,456-kilometre Keystone Pipeline will transport crude oil from Hardisty, Alberta to U.S. Midwest markets.Photograph by:
Courtesy of TransCanada, Courtesy of TransCanada Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a personal pitch Friday for President Barack Obama to support a controversial $7 billion pipeline that could double the amount of Alberta oilsands crude exported to the United States.
Harper confirmed he pressed Obama on Calgary-based TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline during the two leaders' hour-long meeting at the White House.
The planned 3,200-kilometre pipeline, which would run from Hardisty, Alberta to the Gulf Coast of Texas, is currently in limbo as the State Department weighs whether to grant a presidential permit allowing construction to begin.
In a question-and-answer session with reporters, Harper was asked if he discussed Canada's role as a secure supplier of oil and whether he sought assurances the U.S. would look favourably on the Keystone XL project.
"Yes, we did discuss the matter you raised," Harper said.
Obama has been a vocal advocate of the U.S. developing "clean energy" alternatives to help wean America off foreign oil. In his state of the union address last month, he announced plans to include sharp increases in funding for clean energy technology in his upcoming budget.
But Harper said he impressed on Obama the "reality" that the U.S. will need far more energy than it can produce for "some time" to come.
"And the choice that the United States faces in all of these matters is whether to increase its capacity to accept such energy from the most secure, most stable and friendliest location it can possibly get that energy, which is Canada, or from other places that are not as secure, stable or friendly to the interests and values of the United States," Harper said.
Obama has not commented publicly on the project — and did not respond to the question asked Friday of Harper.
But the prime minister's message was precisely the one that Canadian and U.S. energy sector wanted him to deliver.
Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, wrote to Obama on Friday appealing to the U.S. president to approve Keystone XL for economic reasons, saying it could create 342,000 direct and indirect jobs between 2011 and 2015.
"Other countries are securing their energy futures and we need to do the same," Gerard wrote.
The pipeline has been on indefinite hold since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency described a draft environmental study of the project as "inadequate" — raising concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and the potential threat to sensitive ecosystems of a spill.
The State Department is now weighing whether to conduct a supplemental eco-study providing more detail on Keystone's emergency response plans, the chemical composition of the oilsands bitumen and potential damage to groundwater from pipeline leaks or spills.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last October that she was "inclined" to approve the pipeline. But she has since come under political pressure from more than four dozen fellow Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate to address environmental concerns.
In particular, lawmakers in Nebraska have suggested TransCanada change the route of the pipeline to avoid crossing over the vast Ogallala Aquifer, a major groundwater source for the Plains.
U.S. environmental groups have put Keystone XL at the centre of a national advertising campaign in the U.S. against oilsands imports, triggering a TV air war of sorts with TransCanada over the pipeline's value.
Outside the White House on Friday, a small group of environmentalists protested the pipeline by holding up signs depicting states along the Keystone XL route.
"What Prime Minister Harper failed to acknowledge is that tarsands oil is highly polluting," Alex Moore, dirty fuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth U.S., said in a statement. "There are cleaner, safer ways to meet U.S. energy needs than to import this dirty oil from Canada via a dangerous pipeline through America's heartland."
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
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U.S. will continue to rely on oilsands crude: report
By Dina O'Meara, Postmedia News
February 1, 2011
CALGARY - The United States will continue to burn Canadian oilsands crude whether TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL pipeline gets built or not, according to a new report.
The pipeline project, now waiting for presidential approval, has raised heated opposition from environmental groups arguing the $7-billion line would boost dependency on carbon-intensive fuel to the detriment of renewable energy.
However, the study by EnSys Energy, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, suggests Canada's so-called dirty oil will flow regardless of pipeline capacity or demand.
``Under any given pipeline scenario, reducing U.S. oil demand would result in reduction of oil imports from non-Canadian sources, especially the Middle East, with no material reduction in imports of (western Canadian) crude,'' the report said.
A greener scenario is also unlikely to come about as a result of reduced demand as the difference in lost barrels would be made up by sour grades of Middle East oil, the report said.
The Keystone project would ultimately ship up to 1.29 million barrels per day of diluted bitumen out of Alberta's oilsands, running from Hardisty in Alberta to refiners in the U.S. Midwest and then south to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Proponents of the 1,900 kilometre pipeline say it would provide secure supplies from a friendly nation to U.S. refiners facing reduced imports from Mexico and Venezuela.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis told reporters Wednesday he has been pushing to get the U.S. to approve the line and will continue to sell that message.
``We have to keep pushing on this project,'' he said at an oilsands conference. ``We firmly believe . . . it has impact on the energy security of North America. This is crucial for us.''
TransCanada came out with flags waving Wednesday after the State Department made the study public on its website, saying it supported the argument that Keystone XL will increase U.S. energy security.
``The release is really stating the obvious, that they import today a couple of million barrels a day of oil from Canada,'' said chief executive Russ Girling in an interview. ``And that's likely to continue for the foreseeable future.''
TransCanada still expects to receive approval for the pipeline by late summer, for completion by 2013, he said.
Should approval be delayed beyond the third quarter, TransCanada will be meeting with the shippers already committed to the line.
``We could probably accelerate certain aspects of construction, albeit at potentially higher costs,'' Girling said. ``But that's a conversation we'd have to have with our shippers, what they'd want us to do relative to cost versus in- service.''
Alberta oil producers could suffer from a glut of bitumen, pressuring revenues and prospects for new projects, if the Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf Coast were delayed, analysts added.
``If there was no other market access (to the U.S.) and we're still moving forward as far as adding productive capacity, eventually we'll hit a bottleneck in the Midwest market,'' said Jackie Forrest, director of global oil for IHS CERA.
Forest noted that in 2007 Canadian heavy oil blends fell to a $40 discount to light oil while heavy crude from Mexico, with its better access to market, was selling at a much-better $15 discount.
``If we saturate that Midwest market, it may not be that extreme but we're going to see a severe discount for Canadian crudes,'' she said. ``That's going to hurt the economics of new upstream projects . . . that would change our outlook. We wouldn't be doubling in 10 years anymore.''
The lack of north-south access to markets could push forward another controversial project - Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat on the B.C. coast.
Such a line could open new markets in Asia for Canadian oil, but is vehemently opposed by environmental and First Nations groups concerned about the impact of oil spills on land, rivers and the pristine northwestern coast.
Pradis supports the idea of a pipeline to take Canadian crude to the West Coast, currently under review by a joint panel.
``The bottom line is I think we have to seriously consider to expand our markets,'' he said. ``We have huge market opportunities when we see what is going on in China, we can be a major player.''
Not everyone believes the pipeline would cut U.S. oil imports from the Middle East. Energy economist Phil Verleger characterized the report's suggestion that those shipments could be replaced as a ``fairy tale.''
``The United States believes in free trade, and if the oil is priced right, we will get it from the Middle East,'' he said.
Calgary Herald
domeara(at)calgaryherald.com
- with files from Reuters
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
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Environmentalists are no different than terrorists.
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Proposed Canadian oilsands pipeline stirs U.S. debate
Calgary Herald ^ | February 7, 2011 | Sheldon Alberts
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Visits by Canadian prime ministers to the White House rarely generate the kind of American media attention that Ottawa hopes for — too often Canada's message is lost in the dust kicked up by the crisis of the day confronting the president of the United States.
The trend for the most part continued on Friday, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama inked a border declaration that could establish a North American security perimeter. As Harper started talking about the importance of the Canada-U.S. relationship, CNN cut away. Egypt dominated.
But one side issue on the Harper-Obama agenda has piqued the interest of political and business media in Washington — the pending U.S. decision on whether to approve Calgary-based TransCanada's $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline.
In its Sunday editions, the Washington Post published an editorial endorsing the oilsands project — putting the pipeline issue front and centre for the nation's politicians and policymakers on the morning of the Super Bowl.
"Say yes to this pipeline," the headline said.
The Post had little good to say about the product that would be transported through the 3,200-kilometre pipeline. It described Alberta's oilsands crude as "nasty" and stated its greenhouse-gas intensive extraction process makes it "82-per-cent dirtier" to produce than "more traditional oil" the U.S. buys.
"The sooner the world stops burning it, the better."
But notwithstanding the heavy carbon footprint left by oilsands production, the editorialists at the Post concluded "that's not much of a reason to kill the pipeline."
The Post noted that the U.S. already has "plenty" of unused pipeline capacity and Keystone XL itself wouldn't affect oilsands production until the next decade. In other words, stopping Keystone XL won't slow the flow of oilsands crude into the American market.
The newspaper argued the best way to reduce production of oilsands was to lower American demand, not by forbidding construction of a new pipeline from Canada.
As to environmental concerns — particularly the threat that an oil spill could devastate environmentally sensitive areas along the pipeline's route — the Post's editorialists said they can be overcome.
"The Obama administration should carefully consider them and adjust the project accordingly, ensuring it's done responsibly," the Post said.
Harper, for his part, told Obama the U.S. faces a "choice" between meeting the nation's demand for oil by importing from unstable sources in the Middle East or "from the most secure, most stable and friendliest location it can possibly get that energy, which is Canada."
The Washington Post's editorial follows a feature story the newspaper published last month on the high-stakes activism and lobbying that has enveloped the Keystone project. The Los Angeles Times dispatched a correspondent to Texas in January to report on opposition to Keystone XL among landowners along the pipeline's proposed path.
U.S. oil industry officials admit they're surprised with the level of public attention being paid to the forthcoming decision by the U.S. State Department on whether to grant TransCanada a presidential permit to build Keystone XL.
Cindy Schild, refining issues manager for the American Petroleum Institute, said in an interview she "can't remember" a pipeline proposal ever generating the kind of scrutiny that has attended TransCanada's proposal.
Some of that attention is direct fallout from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But in large part, environmentalists can take credit for a well-organized, well-funded and persistent advertising and lobbying campaign against the Keystone XL project.
On the day of Harper's meeting with Obama, a coalition of 86 national, state and local environmental groups wrote the U.S. president urging his administration to reject the "dangerous and expensive" pipeline.
In their letter to Obama, the environmentalists appealed to the president's own values as a reason to reject the pipeline. Since entering the White House, Obama has placed a priority on boosting investments in clean energy to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels.
"We appreciate your words and actions to move America toward a clean energy economy that will provide sustainable jobs and protect Americans from air and water pollution," said the letter, signed by the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and others. "We strongly believe that approval of the permit for Keystone XL would put these priorities in jeopardy."
The Keystone XL project has been on indefinite hold since last July, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency described a draft environmental study of the project as "inadequate" — raising concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and the potential threat to sensitive ecosystems of a spill.
The State Department is now weighing whether to conduct a supplemental eco-study providing more detail on Keystone's emergency-response plans, the chemical composition of the oilsands bitumen and potential damage to groundwater from pipeline leaks or spills.
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BUMP
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I think there's enough ties between Canada and the U.S. Like we need anymore.
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Drill baby drill!
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you betcha ;D
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you betcha ;D
Gas goes to $5 a gallon - Palin will have an open line right into office when Barry sticks with his WTF energy policies.
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So let me get this right, obama is giving billions to brazil for drilling and tells them that he wants the US to be a major purchaser of their oil, ad is still leaving our allied Canada on hold for his.
Obama must hate white people.
Either way - FFFUUUBBBOOOO
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So let me get this right, obama is giving billions to brazil for drilling and tells them that he wants the US to be a major purchaser of their oil, ad is still leaving our allied Canada on hold for his.
Obama must hate white people.
Either way - FFFUUUBBBOOOO
i live in Calgary Alberta we has plenty of oil pls come has our oil
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This is more redistrubtion of wealth of white people to brown people by Obama, literally.
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This is more redistrubtion of wealth of white people to brown people by Obama, literally.
so you suggest there is a form o favoritism skin wise with ole bama
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so you suggest there is a form o favoritism skin wise with ole bama
Absofuckinglutely. Obam hates white people and white western european culture.
He even says he wants to do that. "Previously Dispossessed peoples?"
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Absofuckinglutely. Obam hates white people and white western european culture.
He even says he wants to do that. "Previously Dispossessed peoples?"
so why would a strong white voting population in the us vote him in
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1. Liberal white guilt.
2. Bush fatigue.
3. General stupidity and gulibility of the public.
4. College aged kids who have been brainwashed by years of indoctrination by leftist professors.
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1. Liberal white guilt.
2. Bush fatigue.
3. General stupidity and gulibility of the public.
4. College aged kids who have been brainwashed by years of indoctrination by leftist professors.
don't forget the mother fucker was backed by Oprah as well i mean that alone
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Obama officials back oil pipeline from Canada
Source: Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - President Obama’s administration gave a crucial green light yesterday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast, saying the project would provide a secure source of energy without significant damage to the environment.
For many in the environmental movement, the administration’s apparent acceptance of the pipeline was yet another disappointment, after recent decisions to tentatively approve drilling in the Arctic Ocean, to open 20 million more acres of the Gulf of Mexico for oil leasing and to delay several major air quality regulations. The movement is still smarting from the administration’s failure to push climate change legislation through Congress.
Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2... /
And in the London Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/26/obama...
DU is freaking out.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904836104576560933917369412.html#printMode
Obama is still dithering on this.
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Because Obama isn't publicly revealing his strategy, he sucks.
At all times, all presidents should reveal their decisions to the public.
Obama should have told us taht he was going after bin laden BEFORE he did it so that we could discuss it on message boards and criticize him for it.
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Because Obama isn't publicly revealing his strategy, he sucks.
He is weighing the political fallout from his communist fringe base vs. the economic destruction $4 gasoline is doing now.
If the fallout is less from his radical commie nut base - he will veto it.
If the fallout is greater from indes and a spike to $5 gasoline by next year - he will approve it.
Its all politics to get this dirtbag a second term, not the needs of the nation.
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He is weighing the political fallout from his communist fringe base vs. the economic destruction $4 gasoline is doing now.
If the fallout is less from his radical commie nut base - he will veto it.
If the fallout is greater from indes and a spike to $5 gasoline by next year - he will approve it.
Its all politics to get this dirtbag a second term, not the needs of the nation.
It's rare I agree with you, but on this one yes
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Almost as amusing as Obama demanding that Congress pass the trade bills he's had sitting on his desk for years now. The same trade bills he never gave to Congress.
(http://armthehomeless.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/derp3.jpg)
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Over the past two weeks or so, several hundred protesters assembled outside the White House to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which is designed to transport bitumen produced from oil sands in Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. During the protest, actor Daryl Hannah, climate scientist James Hansen, and author and activist Bill McKibben were among some 1,200 people who were arrested.
The protesters are hoping that President Obama will block the $7 billion pipeline. Their rationale: The pipeline will result in major increases in carbon-dioxide emissions, and therefore it must be stopped or catastrophic climate change will ensue. Protest as they might, a State Department report found that the pipeline will not have a major environmental impact.
Here are ten reasons why the Keystone pipeline will be built.
1. Canada’s oil production is rising, Mexico’s is falling. For many years, the U.S. has relied most heavily on crude imports from Mexico and Canada. Over the past ten years, Canadian crude production has risen by 600,000 barrels per day while Mexico’s has fallen by about that same amount. I’d rather have a reliable, long-term supply of crude from Canada than rely on overseas suppliers, whether they are part of OPEC or not. How long can we rely on the Canadian oil sands? Probably for decades. The resources there are estimated at over 100 billion barrels.
2. U.S. oil production is rising, but we will still need to import oil, and lots of it. Thanks to the shale revolution, domestic oil production could rise by as much as 2 million barrels per day over the next few years. That’s great news. But that increased production will not cover all of America’s needs. The more oil we can get from North America, the better.
3. Some of the oil moving through the Keystone XL will likely be exported, but that’s no reason to stop it. Critics of the pipeline, including Oil Change International, say that much of the oil in the line will “never reach U.S. drivers’ tanks.” That may be true. But U.S. oil exports are not new. American refineries are now exporting about 2.3 million barrels of refined products per day. Why? U.S. refiners are among the best in the world. They are importing lots of lower-grade crude oil and turning it into diesel and other fuels the world demands. Indeed, over the past six years, U.S. oil exports have more than doubled.
4. The pipeline will help America’s balance of trade. Refining is manufacturing. The U.S. is importing unfinished goods (in the form of Canadian crude), finishing them, and exporting them. That’s a good thing.
5. U.S. oil demand may be relatively flat, but it’s not going away. Opponents of the pipeline claim that there’s no need to build the Keystone XL, because U.S. oil demand is sluggish. That’s true, but the U.S. will continue to need lots of oil for decades to come. Here’s the latest prediction from EIA: “U.S. consumption of liquid fuels, including both fossil fuels and biofuels, rises from about 18.8 million barrels per day in 2009 to 21.9 million barrels per day in 2035.”
6. Like it or not, oil is here to stay. U.S. oil consumption — as a percentage of its total primary energy consumption — now stands at about 37 percent. That’s the exact same percentage as in 1949. Given the amount of money that has been spent over the past six decades on reducing our dependence on oil, the hard fact is that petroleum is a miraculous substance. Nothing else comes close to oil when it comes to energy density, ease of handling, flexibility, convenience, cost, or scale.
7. We should be getting as much oil as we can from as close to home as we can. But we can no longer rely on Mexico. Pemex, the country’s national oil company, is not investing enough money in new drilling projects even though its most important field, Cantarell, is declining rapidly. Nor can Pemex count on getting more money from the Mexican government, which is spending heavily on its war against the drug cartels. Indeed, Mexico may already be a failed state. The cartels are under siege by the federal police and federal soldiers, but the slaughter just a few weeks ago of more than 50 people at a casino in Monterey shows that the narcos are still running wild. Canada, meanwhile, has an ultra-stable government. And given its enormous oil deposits, it’s apparent that Canada can be an essential player in America’s effort to secure reliable energy supplies.
8. The claims about the pipeline being the pivotal project with regard to carbon dioxide are not true. McKibben has claimed that if the Canadian oil sands are developed, “it is essentially game over for the climate.” Think what you like about carbon dioxide. The reality is that the global issue of carbon dioxide is no longer about the United States. Over the past decade, U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions fell by 1.7 percent. During that same time, period global carbon-dioxide emissions rose by a stunning 28.5 percent. Recall that over the past decade, Al Gore and his allies dominated the news media and much of the political discussion both in the U.S. and around the world. And yet during that same time frame, the countries of the world increased their use of energy by about 53 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Why? Because hundreds of millions of people all around the world are desperate to improve their lives by using more energy. And the cheapest, most abundant, most reliable source of energy is hydrocarbons.
The result: Carbon-dioxide emissions are soaring. The Kyoto agreement failed. Copenhagen failed. Cancun failed. The upcoming climate meeting to be held in Durban in December will fail, too. Why? The developing countries of the world need energy, and lots of it.
9. Demonize oil all you want, but coal is the real issue when it comes to carbon-dioxide emissions. Again, look at the numbers: Over the past decade, global coal use increased by 47 percent to about 71.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. During that same time period, oil use increased by 13 percent to about 87.3 million barrels per day. If Hansen, McKibben, and their allies want to protest projects that result in lots of carbon-dioxide emissions, they should be looking for coal mines and coal-fired generators, not oil pipelines. But protesting against coal means protesting against electricity generation, because most coal is used for that purpose. Over the past decade, electricity demand in Asia jumped by a whopping 85 percent. All over the world, people are turning on lights in their homes for the very first time. That trend will continue.
10. Obama can’t afford to hand a major campaign issue to his Republican opponent. Earlier this month, Obama backed down on a proposed rules that would have dramatically tightened standards on ground-level ozone. He will approve the Keystone pipeline. Doing otherwise will hurt his chances of staying in the White House for another four years. And while he knows that some environmentalists won’t be happy, he also knows that few, if any, of them will abandon him for a candidate like Rick Perry.
— Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His latest book is Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.
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It’s Great for America So Naturally the Left Opposes It
RedState ^ | September 22, 2011 | Ben Howe
Posted on September 23, 2011 5:56:50 AM EDT by iowamark
Next week will begin public meetings regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will be a pipeline connecting Alberta, Canada with Gulf Coast refineries.
As I’m sure you can expect, the freaks are going to come out of the woodworks. The left is already giving them their talking points:
From the Climate Change® appeals -
While protecting the climate will ultimately require legislation and treaties, in the meantime it is essential to prevent the use of “extreme energy” fuels like the Alberta tar sands oil that will rapidly make climate change far worse.
To enviro-guilting™ -
Our water, our health, our environment and the natural beauty of a 1,700-mile swath of America need you.
To calls for law-breaking -
Now is the time for nonviolent civil disobedience to persuade President Obama to exercise his option to block the construction of the Keystone XL oil tar sands pipeline.
The left is in a tizzy over this. And of course they would be because, as is the case with anything that is in anyway beneficial to our way of life, the left is programmed to be opposed.
The truth is, the Keystone Pipeline is a very good thing. As Steve Maley pointed out some time ago:
The new line would increase the export capacity of the Keystone Pipeline (placed in service 2008) by 700,000 barrels of Canadian oil-sands oil per day.
What’s more, even Barack Obama’s own State Department, not known as being a bastion of conservative ideology, has agreed that the pipeline is safe, smart, and important to our country’s energy future.
From the State Department’s Environmental Impact Statement (emphasis mine):
“In consultation with PHMSA, DOS determined that incorporation of the Special Conditions would result in a Project that would have a degree of safety greater than any typically constructed domestic oil pipeline system under current regulations and a degree of safety along the entire length of the pipeline system that would be similar to that required in high consequence areas as defined in the regulations.” …
Also:
“As a result of these considerations, DOS does not regard the No Action Alternative to be preferable to the proposed Project. If the proposed Project is not implemented, Canadian producers would seek alternative transportation systems to move oil to markets other than the U.S. Several projects have been proposed to transport crude oil out of using pipelines to Canadian ports. Whether or not the proposed Project is implemented, Canadian producers would seek alternative transportation systems to move oil to markets other than the U.S. Several projects have been proposed to transport crude oil out of the oil sands area of Alberta using pipelines to Canadian ports. …”
So the State Department of arguably the most environmentally coo-coo president of all time, a president who is more than happy to shut down the entire coal industry and regulate the air we exhale, thinks this project is safe and a-ok.
That should tell you something about just how out of touch you have to be to think this would be harmful.
Maley also noted a handful of the benefits that environmentalists either aren’t thinking about or just don’t care about:
Opponents of the Keystone XL project might think they’re saving the environment by blocking the line. Not so.
Without the line, Canadians will sell the oil to the Chinese, who will export the oil in tankers.
Without the line, American imports will necessarily increase. More tankers.
Unlike tanker spills, pipeline spills are of limited volume and limited environmental impact. Pipelines are the most efficient and cleanest way to move volumes of oil.
But just in case you need more convincing, here’s some more benefits courtesy of the Consumer Energy Alliance:
Will create over 20,000 high wage manufacturing and construction jobs
Will contribute over $20 billion to the U.S. economy
Will deliver over 700,000 barrels of American and Canadian crude to refineries in the Gulf Coast to help America with the over 19 million barrels of oil a day that we consume
In short, this is an environmentally friendly, completely safe, job creating, energy increasing pipeline that all in all is a great deal for America. Putting aside my shock that President Obama looks to actually sign its approval, it’s no surprise at all to see the unhinged left would have a problem with something that’s that good for our way of life.
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Protestors circle White House in oil pipeline row
Reuters ^
Posted on November 6, 2011 8:01:40 PM EST by Sub-Driver
Protestors circle White House in oil pipeline row Photo 7:06pm EST
By Jeff Mason and Patrick Temple-West
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters opposed to a new oil pipeline from Canada to the United States circled the White House complex on Sunday to press President Barack Obama to reject the project on environmental grounds.
Opponents to TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport crude produced from oil sands, have dogged the president for months, arguing against the carbon-spewing process of extracting oil from the sands.
On Sunday thousands of men and women, many of them wearing orange vests with "Stop the pipeline" printed on them, lined up around the White House grounds, which include the presidential mansion, the Treasury department and a sprawling executive office building.
Carrying signs that matched Obama's campaign colors of blue and red, some protesters chanted "Hey Obama, we don't want no climate drama" and "Stop the pipeline, yes we can," copying phrases connected to Obama's successful 2008 election effort.
The pipeline controversy threatens to loom over the 2012 presidential race. Obama faces political pitfalls whether his administration approves or rejects the project.
A decision in favor would support Obama's goal of creating jobs and diversifying U.S. energy sources, but it would alienate core Democratic supporters who are already disappointed by his progress in fighting climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Click to Add Topic
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/10/us-usa-pipeline-idUSTRE7A64O920111110
Obama is a such a fucking baby and pussy. F U obama voters - kill yourselves.
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Obama delays oil pipeline plan, discards 20,000 jobs
The Daily Caller ^ | 11/10/11 | Neil Munro
Roughly 20,000 oil industry construction jobs are being thrown under Obama’s 2012 campaign bus, largely because the president needs to pump up his sagging support among the environmentalists.
The pitch came Thursday when President Barack Obama put his leadership behind a State Department plan to study alternative routes for the pipeline, which is intended to bring oil from Alberta in Canada to oil refineries along the Gulf Coast.
“We should take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood,” said Obama’s afternoon statement.
The construction jobs, and the revenue from operating the Keystone XL pipeline, may now go to Canadian workers.
That’s because Canadian government officials are already planning to help build a competing pipeline from Alberta’s oil fields to new West Coast ports near Vancouver. The likely destination point is the port of Kitimat in British Columbia.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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Unions Furious at Obama for Killing Pipeline Jobs
Daily Caller ^ | 11-10-11 | Neal Monroe
Posted on November 10, 2011 7:04:51 PM EST by Driftwood1
Statement of Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA, On Delay of Keystone XL Pipeline Construction
Washington, D.C. (November 10, 2011) – Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement today in response to the U.S. State Department delay of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline:
Environmentalists formed a circle around the White House and within days the Obama Administration chose to inflict a potentially fatal delay to a project that is not just a pipeline, but is a lifeline for thousands of desperate working men and women. The Administration chose to support environmentalists over jobs – job-killers win, American workers lose.
Environmental groups from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Sierra Club may be dancing in the streets, having delayed and possibly stopped yet another project that would put men and women back to work. While they celebrate, pipeline workers will continue to lose their homes and livelihoods.
We had hoped the decision would have been made on the basis of economics, facts and the best interests of the nation, not on the basis of a political calculation.
The State Department should have been freed to make its decision, and then allowed the state and people of Nebraska to proceed with their concerns through the many avenues available to them. That would have been a sign of the Administration’s support for jobs and a recognition that workers can’t wait until after the next election for a job.
We are extremely disappointed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nation.foxnews.com ...
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Keystone Cop-Out (Obama punts on more than 20,000 shovel-ready jobs.)
The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, November 11, 2011
Posted on November 10, 2011 9:05:51 PM EST by MinorityRepublican
President Obama used to be fond of "shovel-ready projects." He's also demanding that Congress pass his jobs bill immediately because 9% unemployment is a crisis, and, by the way, he's for making the U.S. less reliant on energy from tyrants. So how about putting 20,000 Americans to work on a North American energy project that's as shovel-ready as they come? Sorry, Mr. Obama is voting present.
The $7 billion project is TransCanada's Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile underground pipeline that would deliver 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. TransCanada filed an application to build the pipeline in September 2008 with the State Department, which must approve it because the pipeline would cross the 49th parallel. In April 2010 and again this August, State produced multivolume environmental impact statements that concluded the pipeline would have "no significant impacts" on the environment. That should have ended the matter.
But the President's environmentalist friends have decided to make Keystone a test of his green virtue. "We'll see if [Mr. Obama] is an oil guy or a people guy," eco-agitator Bill McKibben recently warned at an Occupy Wall Street event, and the Sierra Club has threatened that it won't "mobilize the environmental base" in 2012 if he approves the project. Various Hollywood worthies have marched in front of the White House in protest.
And, what a surprise, suddenly the government is finding new reasons to delay its decision. The State Department's inspector general announced Monday that he is ordering a special review to examine alleged irregularities in the drafting of the impact statements. Then yesterday the White House said it would postpone any decision in order to "undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska." Expect that assessment to arrive after November 2012.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
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OBAMA KILLS PIPELINE, 25,000 JOBS AND CHEAPER ENERGY
Atlas Shrugs ^ | Nov 11, 2011 | Pamela Geller
Posted on November 12, 2011 5:47:30 AM EST by expat1000
Obama has killed a desperately needed pipeline. We lose 25,000 jobs and CHEAPER energy costs, while bitchslapping one of America's greatest allies. Obama needs to be called out.
Where are the Republican warriors on the right? Aren't they more afraid of what Obama and the uber left are doing to destroy this country than they are of the ankle-biting press?
Considering the dire straits this nation is in, this is criminal.
U.S. punts tricky pipeline decision past 2012 election hat tip Van
(Reuters) - The U.S. government on Thursday delayed approval of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline until after the 2012 U.S. election, bowing to pressure from environmentalists and sparing President Barack Obama a damaging split with liberal voters he may need to win reelection.
The decision to explore a new route for TransCanada Corp's Keystone XL oil pipeline to avoid fragile territory in the Sand Hills of Nebraska dismayed the Canadian government, which had lobbied assiduously for the $7 billion project.
It also drew a harsh reaction from the oil industry and from Republicans in Congress who accused Obama of sacrificing jobs for the sake of his reelection.
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Keystone XL pipeline future dependent on shippers
Calgary Herald ^ | 2011-11-11 | Dina O'Meara
Posted on November 12, 2011 11:35:33 AM EST by Clive
Keystone XL pipeline future dependent on shippers
Contract clause allows pipeline backers to jump ship if project delayed
CALGARY — Further delays to TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline could sound a death knell for the massive Alberta-to-Texas bitumen line if shippers pull out, according to industry observers.
The $7-billion project was dealt a blow Thursday after the U.S. State Department put off a decision on the transborder line until early 2013 to review alternative routes, citing public concerns about XL traversing a sensitive water resource.
At a minimum the U.S. ruling presents a delay, at worse it could see key financial support being withdrawn from the $7-billion pipeline, said analysts.
“I believe it could lead to the project not going ahead because the shippers have sunset clauses,” said Juan Plessis, with Canaccord Capital, from Vancouver, B.C. “If TransCanada cannot reasonably expect to have a commencement date of Dec. 31, 2013, then the shippers are not bound to the original agreement.”
Conditions attached to shipper agreements filed with the National Energy Board include TransCanada proving by the end of 2011 it had all the U.S. regulatory approvals to launch the line “no later than Dec. 31, 2013.”
Observers now expect the project to be at least two years late because of the newest development and not built until the end of 2014 — assuming enough shippers stay on board.
“The critical issue is what happens to the 445,000 barrels per day plus of shipper contracts in place, which are necessary for the project to proceed.” said analyst Chad Friess, with UBS Research in a research note Friday. “With the delay, we expect most shippers will have the right to opt out of their contracts under various ‘sunset clauses’ and commit their volumes to other Gulf Coast projects, such as Enbridge’s Wrangler, which proposes to be on stream mid-2013.”
Rival Enbridge Inc. has forwarded an 800,000 barrel per day pipeline proposal which would move oil from benchmark pricing point Cushing, Oklahoma to near Houston, Texas.
Friess said a late 2014 completion would be tolerable to most shippers but added “there is no guarantee that a new route won’t meet the same resistance as the current one, which has been under review since 2008.”
TransCanada included 14 routes crossing Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. when submitting its application to U.S. regulators. The final environmental impact statement approved by the state department in August noted alternative routes would disturb more land and add about $1.7 billion to the project.
The State Department move Thursday was seen as highly political, in part to placate influential Democratic voters in light of large public demonstrations against the pipeline, and help President Barack Obama administration’s avoid controversy around the project until after the 2012 U.S. election.
Environmental and landowner groups argued the 800,000 bpd Keystone would facilitate carbon-intense development of Alberta’s oilsands and could pollute the Ogallala aquifer in Nebraska.
“We don’t fault TransCanada for the fact that they have not received approval from the State Department, we fault the State Department and the Obama administration’s lack of leadership on this issue,” said Bill Day, with Keystone shipper Valero Energy Corp. on Friday. “This should have been approved a long time ago.”
Valero has been public with its support of Keystone since 2008, Day said. He added it was too early to say what direction the San Antonio, Texas, energy trader would take because of the delay, adding the company expected to speak with TransCanada soon on the issue.
Oilsands producer Cenovus Energy would not discuss its shipping agreements, but said the company was meeting with TransCanada for updates.
“Cenovus has taken a position on Keystone XL and we remain supportive of the project,” said spokeswoman Rhona DelFrari in an e-mail. “There has been a great deal of work already completed to determine this was the best route and we are hopeful any remaining concerns can be addressed so this pipeline gets built.”
Shipper options include Kinder Morgan’s proposed TransMountain pipeline expansion to the West Coast, Enbridge’s Wrangler and its equally controversial Northern Gateway pipeline project — which could be gaining force on the Keystone delay.
The 525,000 barrel per day line would ship Alberta bitumen to a marine terminal in British Columbia and on to Asian markets, opening new buyers for Canadian crude virtually limited to a U.S. market.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers quickly assured investors that production would not be affected in the short term by Thursday’s announcement.
“Other alternatives are being pursued to ensure market access over the medium term,” said president David Collyer in a statement. “Delaying Keystone XL will motivate exploration of other markets for Canadian crude oil products,”
The sentiment was echoed by federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who questioned the project’s survival if subjected to another lengthy regulatory review.
“It may mean that we may have to move quickly to ensure that we can export our oil to Asia through British Columbia,” Flaherty told Bloomberg Thursday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu.
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Foreign Affairs; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: Click to Add Keyword
Help stomp out Obamicanism!!
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Obama's New Job Plan: Kill 400,000 Jobs Immediately
Townhall.com ^ | November 12, 2011 | John Ransom
Posted on November 12, 2011 11:02:12 AM EST by Kaslin
The decision by the Obama administration to delay any action on the XL Keystone pipeline until after the election is a fitting development for an administration that has pursued a bankrupt energy policy, a bankrupt jobs policy and is quite literally bankrupting the country with politics thinly veiled as policy.
And the beauty for Obama in this latest axe he's taken to jobs in the USA is that he doesn't even have consider Congress while he's swinging it. He can kill close to a half-a-million jobs all on his own.
“The State Department said Thursday it would take up to 18 months to review alternative routes for the Keystone expansion,” reports MarketWatch, “so it avoids carrying heavy Canadian crude past Nebraska's environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region and a major regional aquifer.”
The pipeline could ultimately supply about a million barrels of Canadian oil to the US per day and 400,000 US jobs, most of them almost immediately. But instead, the president, who has been railing against Congress for not passing another expensive jobs bill just killed 400,000 American jobs, while making sure the price of gas stays high for citizens.
And despite everything the Obama administration has done to slow down domestic development of oil and gas resources, the oil and gas sector is one of the fastest growing jobs markets in a very anemic job market. While other sectors are shedding jobs, oil and gas is hot.
“The six fastest-growing jobs for 2010-11,” according to Economic Modeling Specialists Inc’s (EMSI) latest quarterly employment data, “are related to oil and gas extraction. This includes service unit operators, derrick operators, rotary drill operators, and roustabouts. Each is expected to grow anywhere from 9% to 11% through this year, in an otherwise mostly stagnant economy.”
Imagine what would happen if we could get Obama to cooperate with creating jobs just a little bit.
The State Department had already issued an approval for the XL Keystone project back in August and it was just waiting on Obama’s desk for action.
Obama could have approved the pipeline easily on economic grounds- the project will create 20,000 construction jobs, plus another 350,000 ancillary jobs- but he’s being bullied by his friends on the left to stop the project in its tracks. The green meanies want him to put their anti-growth, anti-development, anti-job, misanthropic agenda above the welfare and prosperity of US citizens…again.
And he’s complied with them now temporarily, likely with the message that if they get him reelected, he’ll kill the project permanently.
Environmental whackos have been getting arrested by appointment at the White House for the last two months hoping to put pressure on Obama to scuttle the most significant development in energy for our country in the last 50 years.
If successful, the Keystone pipeline will not only significantly reduce US imports of oil from place like the Middle East and Latin America, but it will also help open up huge new oil resources in the United States by providing the confidence to develop oil reserves in the Rocky Mountain region.
While it’s estimated that Canada may have as much as 2 trillion barrels of oil in reserves, “the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the [US] has 4.3 trillion barrels of in-place oil shale resources centered in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, said Helen Hankins, Colorado director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management” according to the Associated Press.
4.3 trillion barrels is 16 times the reserves of Saudi Arabia or enough oil to supply the US for 600 years.
But the newest delay has noting to do with aquifers in Nebraska; rather it has to do with activists on the left who want no fossil energy development under any circumstances. Obama thinks that if he alienates these activists, that he can forget about reelection. He’s already alienated the right and center. The only place he has to go is to the left.
The left doesn’t care about jobs. They only care about their agenda.
"The road to viability for the oil shale industry is reliant on a predictable regulatory structure and an environment in which companies can invest in research and development and create jobs," said Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO), who has accused Obama of delaying the commercial extraction of shale oil by adding regulatory obstacles.
"The proper implementation of our environmental and safety regulations already on the books is a far better strategy than adding additional layers of bureaucracy to the process," said Tipton who held hearings on the subject in Colorado in the summer.
Earlier this summer the high priest of climate change, Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore blasted Obama for being timid on environmental matters, perhaps because he sensed a sell-out coming.
It will be a tough sell to the American people struggling under massive unemployment that the 400,000 jobs that could have been created by Keystone aren’t more important than the worries of environmentalists who think that a grouse has more value than a baby.
After all, the oil shipped through Keystone will replace oil that is being purchased from countries that don’t like us very much. And the project will add good paying, US jobs.
And this latest delay will undercut Obama’s demand that Congress pass his jobs bill “immediately,” a demand that started before the bill had even been written.
“The question, then, is, will Congress do something?" the president said at a press conference when he announced his jobs bull, but before he presented it to Congress.
"If Congress does something, then I can't run against a do-nothing Congress. If Congress does nothing, then it's not a matter of me running against them. I think the American people will run them out of town, because they are frustrated."
Frustrated? Yeah.
Obama still doesn’t understand the half of it.
It will be US Against Him until he’s out of office.
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Unions Furious at Obama for Killing Pipeline Jobs (But they are dumb enough to keep voting for him)
Fox News ^ | 11/10/2011 | Terry O’Sullivan,
Posted on November 12, 2011 2:38:38 PM EST by tobyhill
Terry O’Sullivan, General President of LIUNA – the Laborers’ International Union of North America – made the following statement today in response to the U.S. State Department delay of the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline:
Environmentalists formed a circle around the White House and within days the Obama Administration chose to inflict a potentially fatal delay to a project that is not just a pipeline, but is a lifeline for thousands of desperate working men and women. The Administration chose to support environmentalists over jobs – job-killers win, American workers lose.
Environmental groups from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Sierra Club may be dancing in the streets, having delayed and possibly stopped yet another project that would put men and women back to work. While they celebrate, pipeline workers will continue to lose their homes and livelihoods.
We had hoped the decision would have been made on the basis of economics, facts and the best interests of the nation, not on the basis of a political calculation.
The State Department should have been freed to make its decision, and then allowed the state and people of Nebraska to proceed with their concerns through the many avenues available to them. That would have been a sign of the Administration’s support for jobs and a recognition that workers can’t wait until after the next election for a job.
We are extremely disappointed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nation.foxnews.com ...
Obama should be sent to an isolated deserted island.
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Canadian PM eyes China after US pipeline delay
AFP - ^ | 14 November 2011
Posted on November 13, 2011 9:25:40 PM EST by george76
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday that he was looking at exporting more oil to China after the United States delayed a decision on a controversial pipeline.
President Barack Obama's administration last week put off a decision on Keystone XL project after a major protest campaign by environmentalists, who say the pipeline would be prone to accidents and worsen climate change.
The conservative Canadian leader, taking part in a summit in Hawaii hosted by Obama said the pipeline decision had produced "extremely negative reactions" and that he discussed oil exports with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
FUCK OBAMA!!!!
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But he really wants to fix the economy. Honest!
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But he really wants to fix the economy. Honest!
Endless threads about cain are more important.
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http://www.dailytech.com/Obamas+Decision+to+Punt+on+Oil+Pipeline+Pleases+Almost+no+One/article23259.htm
Incredible. We have a human WMD in office wrecking this nation.
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Endless threads about cain are more important.
what did michelle say about the flag?
we all do it man :)
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what did michelle say about the flag?
we all do it man :)
Difference is that 95 percent of my posts are onserious stuff whereas most of your posts are Cain/perry/palin obsession or sucking Kenyan dick.
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Difference is that 95 percent of my posts are onserious stuff whereas most of your posts are Cain/perry/palin obsession or sucking Kenyan dick.
what is the correct ratio of troll/serious posts that you'd like, and what is the criterion for telling the diff?
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State Department Won't Budge on Call for Pipeline Review Despite Rerouting
Fox News ^ | November 15, 2011 | Doug McKelway
Posted on November 15, 2011 7:41:20 PM EST by jazusamo
A day after Canadian oil company TransCanada agreed to reroute its proposed Keystone oil pipeline around Nebraska' ecologically sensitive Ogallala Aquifer, the State Department refused to budge on a new environmental review of the project that is not slated for completion until 2013 -- after the presidential election.
The State Department on Tuesday denied that the delay is designed to appease environmentalists, a core constituency of the Obama administration.
"I can only say, as we've said repeatedly on the record, that the White House had no bearing on the decision-making process," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday. "The State Department has the lead on this issue, and we're going about it in a very transparent and apolitical way."
But representatives of the oil industry beg to differ.
"Unfortunately, this was clearly a political decision on the part of the president. He sacrificed 20,000 new American jobs to save one and that was his own job," said Jack Gerrard of the American Petroleum Institute. "We believe the president should quickly reconsider that the decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline determination and to get focused on jobs and energy production."
The delay has sparked a firestorm of political broadsides. At a time when the president has been effectively accusing congressional Republicans of blocking his energy and job creation agenda, they used the Keystone delay to fire back during a Capitol Hill Press conference Tuesday.
"Here we have a president going off to Australia and playing golf in Hawaii. The guy sitting at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is destroying this country," said Rep. Allen West, R-Fla.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
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Obama Abandons (Private) Labor The Keystone decision is a signal to blue-collar workers that this is no longer their fathers' Democratic Party.
By DANIEL HENNINGER
The decision by the Obama administration to "delay" building the Keystone XL pipeline is a watershed moment in American politics. The implication of a policy choice rarely gets more stark than this. Put simply: Why should any blue-collar worker who isn't hooked for life to a public budget vote for Barack Obama next year?
The Keystone XL pipeline would have created at least 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. Much of this would have been well-paid work for craftsmen, not jobs as hod carriers to repave the Interstate.
On a recent trip to Omaha, Neb., Mr. Obama signaled where his head was on the pipeline during a TV interview: "Folks in Nebraska, like folks all across the country, aren't going to say to themselves, 'We're going to take a few thousand jobs if it means our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health." Imagine if he'd been leading a wagon train of workers and farmers across the Western frontier in 1850.
Within days of the Keystone decision, Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, said his country would divert sales of the Keystone-intended oil to Asia. Translation: Those lost American blue-collar pipeline jobs are disappearing into the Asian sun. Incidentally, Mr. Harper has said he wants to turn Canada into an energy "superpower," exploiting its oil, gas and hydroelectric resources. Meanwhile, the American president shores up his environmental base in Hollywood and on campus. Perhaps our blue-collar work force should consider emigrating to Canada.
Recall as well the president's gut reaction in 2010 to the BP Gulf oil spill: an order shutting down deep-water drilling in U.S. waters. The effect on blue-collar workers in that industry was devastating. Writing in these pages this week, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski described how Mexico, the Russians, Canada and even Cuba are moving to exploit oil and gas deposits adjacent to ours, while the Obama administration slow-walks new drilling permits.
Wall Street Journal columnist Dan Henninger argues that President Obama is leaving private sector workers out to dry on Opinion Journal. Photo: AP.
.No subject sits more centrally in the American political debate than the economic plight of the middle class. Presumably that means people making between $50,000 and $175,000 a year. The president fashions himself their champion.
This surely is bunk. Mr. Obama is the champion of the public-sector middle class. Just as private business has become an abstraction to the new class of public-sector Democratic politicians and academics who populate the Obama administration, so too the blue-collar workers employed by them have become similarly abstracted.
You would think someone in the private labor movement would wake up and smell the tar sands. Last week's Big Labor "victory" in Ohio was about spending tens of millions to support state and local government workers. Many union families attached to the state's withering auto plants no doubt voted with their public-sector brothers in solidarity. But why? Where the rubber hits the road—new jobs that will last a generation—what does this public-sector vote do for them?
Many farmers, ranchers and timber workers went Republican years ago over an increasingly ideological and uncompromising Democratic environmentalism that was wrecking their livelihoods. Now the same thing is happening to blue-collar workers. Mr. Obama from his first days made clear his hostility to carbon production. At best he views much of the private blue-collar work force as carbon enablers for whom he himself will create a new harmony of "green" industries. That would be Solyndra.
Solyndra isn't just a fiasco. It's a clear warning that launching new industries onto the big muddy of massive public subsidies is fraught with economic and political problems.
Enlarge Image
CloseMartin Kozlowski
.The Democratic promise to private blue-collar workers has been that the party would use its clout to in effect "manufacture" new jobs out of public budgets—high-speed rail projects, school construction and the like. But surely that's gone aglimmering.
Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, New York and California—whose blue-collar families traditionally hand those states to Democratic candidates—are all locked in budgetary death struggles to pay for their public workers. That conversation is about generations-long budget commitments. There isn't going to be anything large left over for "public-private" job schemes.
There's little hope that anyone in the leadership of the traditional union movement, public or private, would entertain a rethinking of their historic ties to the Democratic Party. But younger workers should. The economic crisis of the past two years is no blip. In some construction unions, unemployment is well over 25%. The only force out there that can create real jobs over the longer term is the strongest private economic growth the U.S. can muster. The past three years of a Democratic administration's economic policies have the U.S. mired in a growth rate rotating like a forgotten flywheel around 2%.
America's workers, no matter the color of their collars, desperately need a higher economic growth rate than decisions such as the delay on Keystone are going to give them. The Keystone shuffle should make clear to many middle-class workers that this is no longer their fathers' Democratic Party. It's going in a different direction, toward the clouds. This may be the year to open negotiations with the alternative.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
Obama = traitor, communist, street thug, and pofs.
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Keystone XL the 'safest pipeline ever'
Sun News Network ^ | 2011-12-02 | Mark Dunn
Posted on December 2, 2011 6:30:08 PM EST by Clive
OTTAWA -- Republicans turned up the heat on U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday to reverse his decision to delay what was described at a congressional hearing as the safest oil pipeline ever proposed.
A parade of witnesses appeared at a House sub-committee meeting on energy to defend the safety and economic benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline, and to warn of the consequences should it rupture.
And in between partisan sniping between Democrats and Republicans, pipeline junkies learned Alberta-based TransCanada Corp. has adopted 57 additional safety measures, including 21,000 censors linked to satellites to detect problems.
"This is the most technologically advanced and safest pipeline ever proposed," Rep. Ed Whitfield said, noting XL has a censor every 167 meters to monitor pressure, flow rates and to identify leaks.
Republicans introduced legislation in the Senate this week that would force the State Department to issue a permit within 60 days to kick start the project critics say Obama delayed until after next fall's election to keep his environmental base onside and money flowing to his re-election bid.
Alex Pourbaix, TransCanada's president of energy and oil pipelines, reminded lawmakers no other pipeline has gone through as many reviews and as much scrutiny since the oil giant applied for a construction permit 40 months ago.
The $7 billion pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of crude daily to the Gulf Coast, where specialized refineries process a similar product from Venezuela.
"This has been by far the most exhaustive and detailed review ever conducted of a crude oil pipeline in the U.S.," said Pourbaix.
Representatives from organized labour pitched their support and the need for the 20,000 shovel-ready jobs XL would produce and spinoff work.
Alternative energy producers and a representative from a Nebraska citizens group opposed to the pipeline asked the committee not to rush the project.
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Dem Keystone support creates tougher fight for Reid, Obama
By Alexander Bolton - 12/16/11 04:08 PM ET
Republicans want to jam Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on the Keystone oil sands pipeline and the Democratic leader will have a tough time resisting, given support within his caucus for the project.
GOP leaders have made clear to Reid that they will not approve an extension of the payroll tax holiday unless it includes language to speed up construction of the pipeline.
Senate Republicans estimate as many as 14 Senate Democrats support the project. Labor unions have also voiced strong backing, complicating Reid’s endgame talks with GOP leaders.
“I personally think the pipeline is absolutely in the national interest. It’ll help us reduce our dependence on foreign energy, at least foreign sources that are hostile to our interests,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “I, for one, on this side would hope that this could be part of a final package.”
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said Thursday the pipeline has more support among Democrats than her leaders acknowledge.
“It’s always had more Democratic support than people thought,” she said.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday: “I am proud to again offer my support for the Keystone XL pipeline and the jobs it will create. We need a quicker decision, based on the merits of this project.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told House GOP colleagues Friday morning he would force the Senate to vote on expediting Keystone by attaching it to the bill that Senate leaders are crafting on a two-month extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits.
Republicans say they will also insist on including Keystone in a yearlong extension of the payroll tax holiday, unemployment benefits and a one-year freeze in scheduled cuts to Medicare reimbursements.
Republican leaders see it as a juicy political issue to use against President Obama. If Democrats block it, it reinforces the GOP message that the administration’s regulatory agenda slows job growth.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday afternoon that he and Boehner would not agree to any package extending the payroll tax holiday that did not include the Keystone language.
“There’s bipartisan support for this project and we need to get it done. We need to get it done now,” McConnell said. “The House of Representatives has been quite clear that they’re not going to support a package that does not include the pipeline. Frankly, I will not be able to support a package that doesn’t include the pipeline.”
McConnell said White House officials want to separate the Keystone pipeline from the payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits but that it makes no sense to treat it in standalone legislation.
“Let’s also include something that actually helps the private sector create the jobs Americans need for the long term,” he said.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) took to Twitter to make the same demand, proclaiming that “Keystone XL pipeline WILL be part of final tax package.”
At his briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney again criticized Republicans for inserting the “extraneous” pipeline issue into the bill, and said the State Department review process should be able to run its course.
However, Carney declined to rule out the White House accepting a bill with Keystone provisions. “I am not going to prejudge a final product that does not yet exist,” Carney said.
Carney rejected the notion that the president's opposition to the Keystone language is political.
"What he has said is that there are criteria that must be considered...You can't approve something before you have something to review. This is a process run by the State Department...that process needs to be reviewed," Carney said. "Again, the president is not making a judgment on whether the permit should or should not be granted. But what it shouldn't be is short-circuited because folks think it ought to be. That's what that review process is all about."
State is the agency charged with the review of Keystone, and it has said it would have to reject Keystone if the House language is approved because it would not have to do a sufficient review.
Senate Republican aides say Democratic Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Mark Warner (Va.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Bob Casey (Pa.) also support the Keystone language.
“All the trade unions, everyone’s for it, it creates thousands of jobs,” Manchin said on Fox News earlier this week.
Several Republican senators who are skeptical about the effectiveness of cutting payroll taxes to stimulate the economy say the Keystone pipeline gives them an important reason to vote for it.
Labor leaders have pushed Democratic leaders to concede on the pipeline, which is strongly opposed by environmentalists.
“Throughout America's Heartland, the Keystone Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs, and as many as 500,000 indirect jobs via a strong economic multiplier effect,” Mark Ayers, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, wrote in an opinion piece published by The Huffington Post last month.
Speaking about the ongoing negotiations on the payroll tax bill, Carney said, "There's a process at work. I'm not going to analyze what language would be acceptable and what wouldn't."
He said the president's primary focus is in getting the payroll tax bill passed.
"I'm not going to get ahead of the process," Carney said. "The president's priority is ensuring that Americans do not get that tax hike ... it's vital to the economy."
—Ben Geman and Amie Parnes contributed to this report.
This story was posted at 2:07 p.m. and was updated at 4:08 p.m.
Source:
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/199995-gop-counts-on-democratic-support-as-it-tries-to-jam-reid-on-keystone-pipeline
Obama is such a piece of shit.
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Congress cannot accelerate Keystone (XL pipeline) decision: State Department
Yahoo ^ | 12/12/11
Posted on December 13, 2011 8:27:32 AM EST by Libloather
Congress cannot accelerate Keystone decision: State Department
Reuters – 12 hrs ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department warned on Monday that a plan by congressional Republicans to fast track the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline decision would violate environmental laws and force it to withhold approval.
"Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision ... the department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project," the State Department said in a statement.
**SNIP**
Environmentalists say the pipeline would threaten Nebraska's Sand Hills region and lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, and had threatened to hold back on campaigning for Obama in the election.
The State Department is now obtaining additional information on possible alternate routes that avoid the Sand Hills in Nebraska, and believes this review could be completed in time for a decision to be made in first quarter 2013, it said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Click to Add Topic
KEYWORDS: clinton; congress; energy; frontenvirogroups; keystone; keystonexl; pipeline; soros; state; Click to Add Keyword
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Greens call out Keystone XL deal (Obama has 2 choices, jobs or Environmental Whackos)
Politico ^ | 12/17/2011 | By DARREN SAMUELSOHN
Posted on December 17, 2011 8:03:37 AM EST by tobyhill
Senate Democrats accepted a provision Friday forcing a decision in two months on the Keystone XL oil pipeline as part of the must-pass payroll tax cut package, leaving the White House on the brink of a meltdown with environmental groups.
"It's bulls—-," said Sierra Club President Michael Brune. "This is no way to run a government. We've got Republicans in Congress who are willing to hold the entire government hostage simply to give a Christmas present to industry."
GOP and Democratic sources told POLITICO that the White House swallowed the House Republican-written pipeline rider in order to get a deal to extend the tax holiday, jobless benefits and the Medicare reimbursement rate into February.
For greens, the fact that the Keystone pipeline was back on the table five weeks after Obama had seemingly punted it until 2013 is causing considerable heartburn with an administration that hasn't been as green as they once wished.
Their initial win looked even better because it came just days after thousands circled the White House at a weekend protest that drew celebrity faces like actor Mark Ruffalo. But now Obama's environmental allies again face the question of whether to withhold support for his reelection campaign.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Enviro nazis are terrorists.
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Delaying Keystone pipeline 'utterly irrational,' says GOP front-runner Gingrich
montrealgazette.com ^ | 12/16/2011 | SHELDON ALBERTS
Posted on December 17, 2011 8:12:35 AM EST by RoosterRedux
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich on Thursday blasted President Barack Obama's for delaying the Keystone XL oilsands pipeline, calling the decision an "utterly irrational" move that damages the U.S. economy and leaves the country vulnerable to continued dependence on Middle East oil.
During a Fox News presidential debate in Iowa, Gingrich also criticized Obama for threatening to veto Republican legislation that would force his administration to rule on the pipeline before the current 2013 timeline.
"The president of the United States cannot figure out that it is utterly irrational to say, 'I am going to veto a middle-class tax cut to protect left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco, to say we are going to kill American jobs, weaken American energy, make us more vulnerable to the Iranians,' and do it in a way that makes no sense to any normal rational American," Gingrich said to a loud ovation from the audience at the Sioux City Conference Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at montrealgazette.com ...
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Canada-U.S. Oil Pipeline Poses Few Environmental Risks -- State Dept. [Flashback - 08/26/11]
NY Slimes ^ | AUGUST 26, 2011 | ELANA SCHOR
The $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline cleared a key hurdle today, as the State Department finalized an environmental review that found limited hazards from the controversial Canada-to-U.S. project.
The State Department's review drew quick fire from green activists who have escalated their condemnation of Keystone XL in recent weeks, warning that their political support for President Obama could evaporate if his administration approves the pipeline. Against the backdrop of that pressure, a top department official reiterated publicly today that its findings did not constitute an official go-ahead for the 1,700-plus-mile proposal.
The environmental impact statement (EIS) on the pipeline -- which would nearly double U.S. imports of Canadian oil sands crude if constructed -- is but "one piece of the information that will be considered" alongside foreign policy, economic and other concerns, before State makes a final decision by year's end, Assistant Secretary of State for International Scientific Affairs Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters today.
Despite the finding of minor negative environmental effects, Jones said that the EIS "should not be seen as a lean in any direction, either for or against the pipeline," and described DOS's take on the project as neutral.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who led a legislative push this summer to fast-track Keystone XL's approval, also hailed State's review but reiterated long-standing criticism of the administration's speed in acting on the permit bid by project sponsor TransCanada Corp.
"[T]he American people are still waiting on the president for action ... nearly three years of delay have left a cloud of uncertainty around a project that will bring so many immediate jobs and so much secure energy to our country," Upton said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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SO WHY IS OBAMA STOPPING THIS?
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Democrats: Concession to GOP on Keystone will force Obama to kill pipeline
By Alexander Bolton - 12/16/11 09:08 PM ET
Senate Democrats say the Obama administration will kill the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, a controversial issue in the debate to extend the payroll tax holiday.
Senate leaders on Friday agreed to a two-month backstop measure to extend payroll tax relief, which included House-passed language to expedite a decision on the pipeline's construction. The Senate will vote on the measure Saturday morning.
Republicans hailed inclusion of the pipeline provision as a victory, but Democrats said the practical effect of the language would be to kill the project.
“They’ve just killed the Keystone pipeline. They killed it because they forced the president to make a decision before he can make it so he’s not going to move forward with it,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and an ally of environmental groups.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he was not concerned about giving in to Republicans on the Keystone provision.
“The president is apparently just going to use the option given to him not to let it go [forward],” said Levin. “There’s a waiver in there which we understand the president is going to exercise.”
A senior Obama administration official noted that the president said he would not accept an attempt by Congress to mandate construction before adequate review of health and safety regulations.
RELATED ARTICLES
•Payroll tax deal requires quick decision
The officials said the House-passed Keystone language merely speeds up the decision process but does not determine whether the project would be approved.
Officials at the State Department, which has authority over approving the project, said they would not be able to conduct the necessary review if given only 60 days, the timeline set by House Republicans.
A spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats are trying to spin the outcome of the payroll tax relief talks in the best possible light.
“If it was not such a big deal, why did they fight so hard to keep the language out of the bill,” said the aide. “Take it with a grain of salt.”
Amie Parnes contributed to this report.
Enviro Terrrorists are Muslim Terrorists best friends
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Jim Jones bucks Obama on Keystone XL pipeline
Posted By Josh Rogin Friday, December 16, 2011 - 1:05 PM Share
Former National Security Advisor Jim Jones called today for quick action on the Keystone XL pipeline construction, directly opposing the White House he worked for only a few months ago.
Jones, who rarely speaks in public and almost never contradicts his former boss President Barack Obama, lashed out against the administration in a press call and warned of grave consequences to U.S. national security if the project to build the pipeline doesn't move forward immediately. The call was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and Jones was joined on the call by API President and CEO Jack Gerard.
"In a tightly contested global economy, where securing energy resources is a national must, we should be able to act with speed and agility. And any threat to this project, by delay or otherwise, would constitute a significant setback," said Jones. "The failure to [move forward with the project] will prolong the risk to our economy and our energy security" and "send the wrong message to job creators."
The comments come at the worst possible moment for the Obama administration, which is trying to beat back an effort from congressional Republicans to attach language that would force a decision on the pipeline to legislation that extends unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday for middle class Americans.
Obama has promised to veto any bill that comes to his desk with the Keystone XL pipeline language, and the State Department has said that if it is forced to come to a quick decision on the pipeline, that decision would be no because there has not been enough time to properly evaluate environmental and logistical considerations.
The Cable asked Jones if he was getting paid by API for supporting its cause. Jones said he was not getting paid, and was speaking out because he believed in the pipeline cause.
"I've known Jack Gerard for a number of years... and when he called me a few days ago and asked me if I was willing to participate in this because of my interest in energy issues, I agreed to do so," Jones said.
Jones said the project was an important piece of the U.S.-Canada relationship and that if the United States doesn't act, Canada may decide to cancel the project and give its energy resources to the Chinese. He also said if they United States doesn't move forward with the pipeline, that would be another signal of fading U.S. leadership in the world.
"If we get to a point where the nation cannot bring itself to do, for whatever reason, those things that we all know is in our national interest... then we are definitely in a period of decline in terms of our global leadership and in terms of our ability to compete in the 21st century," said Jones.
Jones said that he was not in touch with the administration directly on this issue, but that he told Obama personally just before resigning that Obama had a chance to be the "energy president," but was failing to distinguish himself on the issue.
"I do not think the United States has a comprehensive strategy for energy writ large and that's a critical shortfall. Nor do I think we are properly organized," Jones said. "In my last few days I communicated that to the president."
UPDATE: A reader passes on this 2008 article from ThinkProgress that points out Jones was the Institute for 21st Century Energy, a organization closely affiliated with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the article, Jones' Transition Plan at the Institute "calls for billions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear and coal industry, a dramatic expansion in domestic oil and natural gas drilling into protected areas, and massive new energy industry tax breaks and loopholes."
There are now three certain things in life - Death, Taxes, and Obama fucking up.
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No Credible Case Against Keystone (Obama should approve it)
National Review ^ | 12/17/2011 | Deroy Murdock
Posted on December 17, 2011 3:08:44 PM EST by SeekAndFind
To recap:
Some 160 million Americans will watch their taxes rise about $1,000 each, if the current payroll-tax cut ends on January 1.
Millions of jobless Americans will see their unemployment benefits run out, if the federal government does not extend them by year’s end.
The Iranian government this week threatened to shut the Strait of Hormuz and bottle up a key route that oil tankers use to deliver petroleum to an energy-hungry planet.
President Obama could fix the first two problems and ameliorate the dangers of the third, if he would sign legislation to extend the tax cut and unemployment benefits.
The sticking point, of course, is Republican language requiring Obama to make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport friendly oil from the Canadian oil sands to refineries in Texas. While America moans beneath an 8.6 percent unemployment rate, the pipeline would create 20,000 well-paying jobs in labor-happy industries. That’s why the AFL-CIO and other unions support Keystone.
Obama and the Democrats claim that Keystone XL is environmentally risky. To hear them speak, Keystone would scar the pristine line separating America from its peaceful neighbor and then despoil sensitive land and habitat across the fruited plains. As this map shows, however, the U.S.-Canadian border and the path the project would take already are swarming with pipelines:
While the map above shows pipelines that carry all commodities, those that transport crude oil and refined petroleum products are numerous all by themselves. At least twelve such pipelines already intersect the northern frontier, as this map illustrates:
Obama and his comrades complain further that Keystone XL would jeopardize the Ogallala Aquifer, a sort of underground Great Lake that runs from South Dakota to Texas. Here again, Democrats might have a point if Keystone XL were the first pipeline to traverse the aquifer. However, as the map below confirms, this is a bit like worrying about the growth of America’s welfare state: Too late!
So, America either should install Keystone XL, with all of its benefits, or — if such pipelines really are as dangerous as Democrats argue — yank out all these pipelines that could destroy Ogallala.
Most galling, the U.S. House–approved bill, which the Senate will consider soon, does not require President Obama to endorse Keystone XL. It merely directs him to make a decision on it within 60 days. Under the GOP-backed provision, Obama could kill Keystone XL — but he would have to make up his mind either way.
But rather than lead, Obama prefers to straddle. He wants to delay a decision until after the November 2012 election, to avoid offending either Big Labor or the environmental movement. If he can slither quietly between the two, Obama reckons, his reelection prospects grow.
Agree or disagree with them, the Left used to make valid points, although their solutions usually were wrong. Now, increasingly and especially with Keystone, they have no case, no issue, and no argument other than: “NO!”
— New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a nationally syndicated columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University.
Rot in hell Obama you piece of shit along w every piece of shit who voted for you. Fucking asshole.
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333 - are you in favor of this thing?
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333 - are you in favor of this thing?
Yes of course.
Obama is for jobs like sandusky is for kids.
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Yes of course.
Obama is for jobs like sandusky is for kids.
so now you're in favor of the use of eminent domain?
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so now you're in favor of the use of eminent domain?
My understanding is that they have alternative paths mitigating that issue. Both parties want it and guess who again is the main obstacle to progress groeth, etc, obama, like on everything else.
Until he is gone - nothing will improve.
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My understanding is that they have alternative paths mitigating that issue. Both parties want it and guess who again is the main obstacle to progress groeth, etc, obama, like on everything else.
Until he is gone - nothing will improve.
Does "both parties" include the farmers who have already had their land seized against their will?
btw - are there only two interested parties?
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Does "both parties" include the farmers who have already had their land seized against their will?
btw - are there only two interested parties?
funny youre against forcing the farmers to do something for the "greater good" against there will yet youre A-OK with the health care mandate b/c its for the "greater good"
guess its only "good" when you agree with it?
typical liberal thinking
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funny youre against forcing the farmers to do something for the "greater good" against there will yet youre A-OK with the health care mandate b/c its for the "greater good"
guess its only "good" when you agree with it?
typical liberal thinking
Liberals like straw don't give a damn about real middle class jobs. They are wedded t their enviro nazi agenda at all costs.
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funny youre against forcing the farmers to do something for the "greater good" against there will yet youre A-OK with the health care mandate b/c its for the "greater good"
guess its only "good" when you agree with it?
typical liberal thinking
funny how you've concluded I'm against it when I've never said whether I'm for or against it
typical Bereft Fury not thinking .....as usual
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Liberals like straw don't give a damn about real middle class jobs. They are wedded t their enviro nazi agenda at all costs.
you're the main enviro nazi on this board
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The best thing about this topic is that it proves how much of a pussy Obama is. This guy constantly delays any major decision until after the elections. He has no principles or backbone whatsoever.
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funny how you've concluded I'm against it when I've never said whether I'm for or against it
typical Bereft Fury not thinking .....as usual
LOL ok well go on record then hoss, are you for it or against it?
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The best thing about this topic is that it proves how much of a pussy Obama is. This guy constantly delays any major decision until after the elections. He has no principles or backbone whatsoever.
Very simple formula - if its good for America - Obama hates it. If it's bad for America - Obama will not rest until it's implemented.
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WH advisor: Keystone 'almost certainly impossible'
The Washington Examiner ^ | December 18, 2011 | Joel Gehrke
Posted on December 18, 2011 10:57:00 PM EST by 2ndDivisionVet
One of President Obama's top economic advisors said that the Keystone XL pipeline "almost certainly" will not be approved, despite its potential as a job-creating measure, because the environmental studies will not be finished within the 60 days in which Congress required Obama to make a decision.
"If [State Department officials] were only given 60 days to look at alternative routes in Nebraska and do the serious environmental and health reviews," explained Sperling, director of Obama's National Economic Council, during a CNN interview, "[it] would make it almost certainly impossible to extend that permit."
Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., claims that approval of the Keystone oil pipeline -- which would stretch from Canada to Texas -- would "create 20,000 direct jobs in building the pipeline and manufacturing," while a former advisor to Obama has called the pipeline a national security issue.
Environmental concerns might block the pipeline, however. The Nebraska legislature voted unanimously to reroute the pipeline away from certain ecologically sensitive areas, and the governor signed the bill, but now he supports expediting approval of the pipeline. "I certainly support expediting everything we're doing with the Keystone XL project," Gov. Dave Heineman, R-Neb., told reporters last week. He'd like the State Department to approve quickly whatever plan the state develops after completing its environmental review of alternative routes.
The environmental reviews that the State Department would conduct will not be completed before the 2012 election.
More lies from Obama.
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Harper to Obama: I’ve got plenty of buyers for our oil
Hot Air ^ | December 21,2011 | ED MORRISSEY
Clearly, Harper isn’t enamored with Barack Obama’s stalling on the Keystone XL pipeline. Kelly McParland got the same impression, and writes at the National Post that Harper kept it friendly but made no mistake about playing political and economic hardball if Obama continues to stall
Stephen Harper sent a none-too-subtle shot across the bow of our American friends and allies Monday when he indicated he’s dead keen on selling Canadian oil to buyers in Asia. He didn’t put it in so many words, but he was telling Washington this: “You don’t want our oil, no problem. We’ve got lots of markets across the Pacific where we don’t have to beg to get a sale.”
It was a timely message and a good one for the Prime Minister to send. There is no need to be rude to the U.S., which is and always will be Canada’s best market. But there’s also no need to sit around and wait for the political circus in Washington to pause long enough to recognize the attractiveness of the opportunity Canada is offering. Given the state of absurdity that has the U.S. capital in its grip, there’s no telling how long that could take.
Meanwhile, China is growing thirstier, and Canada grows impatient to sell its bountiful oil to someone who really wants it. Maybe everyone should concentrate on the real economic benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline instead of the illusory differences between a 2- and 12-month extension of a tax holiday that produced no economic stimulus at all over the past year.
FU every single thug and leech plannong on voting for this Kenyan Marxist in 2012
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Harper is having enough trouble getting a pipeline built from the tar sands to the pacific. Right now it is not likely to happen at all. It's a bluff on Canada's part.
As for Keystone it is not just Obama who is luke warm on it but states like Nebraska who are not too keen to have this thing through their back yards. You can not rush anything through without fully understanding and investigating all consequences environmentally and economically. Keystone have had numerous leaks recently in pipelines they run.
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Harper is having enough trouble getting a pipeline built from the tar sands to the pacific. Right now it is not likely to happen at all. It's a bluff on Canada's part.
As for Keystone it is not just Obama who is luke warm on it but states like Nebraska who are not too keen to have this thing through their back yards. You can not rush anything through without fully understanding and investigating all consequences environmentally and economically. Keystone have had numerous leaks recently in pipelines they run.
Bullshit - this thing has been in the works for years and they already dealt w the nebraska issue
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Bullshit - this thing has been in the works for years and they already dealt w the nebraska issue
Yeah they dealt with it a month ago and now have to to reroute it. Wow a month ago ::) Better have it done by Christmas i guess idiot
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http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/keystone-xl-pipeline-economics-idealism-and-politics
Good article. F Obama and the communist enviro-fanatics.
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Obama's Delay On Keystone Carries A Large Cost
By ROBERT L. BRADLEY JR.
Posted 12/22/2011 06:18 PM ET
http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=595680&p=1
The Keystone XL pipeline has become a political football.
In November, the White House announced it would delay deciding on the project until after next year's election. Administration officials claim they need more time to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of the $7 billion, 2,100-mile project to transport crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to major American refineries in the Gulf Coast.
Not content to wait until 2013, Republicans inserted a Keystone approval provision into the payroll tax extension. The result of that move is still in flux, as House Republicans have rejected the Senate's measure.
Regardless of the outcome, President Obama's desire to delay the pipeline is just the latest example of his pernicious proclivity for putting politics over sound policy when it comes to energy regulations.
The president simply doesn't want to bear the political costs of deciding either way on Keystone until after his re-election bid. He's wants to remain non-committal.
But organized labor, another one of Obama's prized constituencies, is as disappointed as extremist environmentalists are elated.
Growth or no growth? What's a president to do?
Of course, the administration can't admit to such brazen politicking. It has to provide some sort of policy justification for the delay.
According to a statement from the president, regulators want to "take the time to ensure that all questions are properly addressed and all the potential impacts are properly understood."
That's as specific as the statement gets. So it's unclear what remaining "questions" or "potential impacts" he's referring to.
Canada's oil will go somewhere. The market demands it. If not to the U.S. Gulf Coast — as currently planned — the oil could easily flow west, where China will pick it up in tankers at a port in British Columbia.
The Canadian government has already instituted rigorous protections to ensure the area surrounding oil extraction points aren't damaged. And the State Department recently concluded a wide-ranging study of Keystone and determined that there were no potential environmental effects from the pipeline requiring further investigation.
Shambling on Keystone might be smart politics — but there's no good policy reason to delay approval. And there is a huge cost of delay, which can be captured in just four letters: J-O-B-S.
Keystone XL requires miles of pipe to be welded and installed, and at least 30 new pumping facilities to be constructed. American workers would staff many of those operations.
Indeed, if Keystone XL were allowed to proceed as planned, oil sands development and related operations would directly create thousands of new jobs. Tens of thousands additional positions would be created indirectly at businesses along the pipeline's pathway.
That same political strategizing driving the Keystone delay also undergirds the White House's stance on hydraulic fracturing.
Colloquially know as "fracking," this technique has proven invaluable in extracting natural gas buried under the earth's surface. It involves pumping a high-pressure mixture of water and sand into the rock surrounding deposits to free up gas for collection.
In the Marcellus shale — a massive reserve running from Ohio and Pennsylvania into New York — fracking is the only way for developers to get access to gas located deep underground. Unfortunately, policymakers high and low have succumbed to environmentalist alarmism on fracking.
New York — with the tacit support of the White House — has instituted a fracking moratorium and effectively prohibited exploration of the parts of the Marcellus that run under the state.
Again, the cost of currying favor with environmentalists? Jobs. According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, Marcellus development in New York could generate up to 80,000 new local positions.
Energy companies should have to comply with commonsense regulations to prevent environmental damage. And of course policymakers need to consider noneconomic costs when deciding to approve major energy projects.
But politicking has now gotten in the way of good thinking. This administration and its allies are holding up vital new energy projects — and it's costing Americans new jobs.
And if the oil is exported by tanker to destinations such as China, Obama will have left the environment and the economy worse off. Lose-lose rather than win-win — now that would be monumental.
• Bradley is the CEO & founder of the Institute for Energy Research and author of "Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies" (Scrivener Publishing and John Wiley & Sons).
If its good for america Obama hates it - if its bad for America Obama jumos on it.
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Oil industry chief warns Obama on Canada pipeline
Boston.com ^ | January 4, 2012 | Matthew Daly
The oil industry's top lobbyist warned the Obama administration Wednesday to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline or face "huge political consequences" in an election year.
Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it would be a "huge mistake" for President Barack Obama to reject the 1,700-mile, Canada-to-Texas pipeline. Obama faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether the $7 billion pipeline is in the national interest.
"Clearly, the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest," Gerard said at the trade association's annual "State of American Energy" event. "A determination to decide anything less than that I believe will have huge political consequences."
Gerard said the oil group has teamed up with at least 15 unions to support the pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs.
"We will stand shoulder to shoulder" with labor unions that have backed the pipeline, including the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department, Gerard said.
"Over the next 60 days, they will not be silent," he said.
Gerard repeatedly referred to the Keystone pipeline at his annual speech assessing the energy industry, calling it the business group's top near-term priority.
While the pipeline has not been a focus of the GOP race for president,
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
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Oil industry chief warns Obama on Canada pipeline
Boston.com ^ | January 4, 2012 | Matthew Daly
The oil industry's top lobbyist warned the Obama administration Wednesday to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline or face "huge political consequences" in an election year.
Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it would be a "huge mistake" for President Barack Obama to reject the 1,700-mile, Canada-to-Texas pipeline. Obama faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether the $7 billion pipeline is in the national interest.
"Clearly, the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest," Gerard said at the trade association's annual "State of American Energy" event. "A determination to decide anything less than that I believe will have huge political consequences."
Gerard said the oil group has teamed up with at least 15 unions to support the pipeline, which would create thousands of jobs.
"We will stand shoulder to shoulder" with labor unions that have backed the pipeline, including the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department, Gerard said.
"Over the next 60 days, they will not be silent," he said.
Gerard repeatedly referred to the Keystone pipeline at his annual speech assessing the energy industry, calling it the business group's top near-term priority.
While the pipeline has not been a focus of the GOP race for president,
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
If that oil goes elsewhere... I will lose all faith in our government.
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Canada already said China wants it if we don't.
Thugbama has stated many times his goal is to SKYROCKET energy prices, so he will definately veto this.
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Canada already said China wants it if we don't.
Thugbama has stated many times his goal is to SKYROCKET energy prices, so he will definately veto this.
I thought he was talking about energy sources he didnt approve of, like coal?
(Yes when I heard him say that, I couldnt fucking believe he actually said that, let alone that people were excited about it, its like the man lives in a fucking fantasy land where if he makes it expensive enough, magically this new technology and infastructure will appear, with no consequences in the mean time! Fucking idiot. Anyone that is prepared to handle a nation wide meltdown to try and implement his "vision" of what the country should be, is a fucking moron.)
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Pressure builds on Obama with looming Keystone deadline
Fuel Fix ^ | January 11, 2012 | Puneet Kollipara
A looming deadline for a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is ratcheting up political pressure on President Barack Obama, who will anger key supporters regardless of his decision.
Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.’s proposed 1,700-mile pipeline would carry tar-sands crude from Alberta to Texas refineries in Port Arthur and Houston.
It appeared late last year that the administration had found a way to delay the permitting decision past this year’s election. But the pipeline’s Republican supporters raised the stakes by negotiating inclusion of a 60-day decision deadline as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension enacted Dec. 23.
The Feb. 21 deadline forces Obama to choose between the wishes of two key constituencies – environmentalists and some Democratic fundraisers who oppose the pipeline, and some labor unions that support it as a job-maker.
The decision on a permit technically rests with the State Department because the pipeline would cross the U.S.-Canada border, although Obama said last year that he might make the final decision himself. A decision had been expected by the end of 2011.
In November, the State Department said it would delay the pipeline decision until after the 2012 election, citing the need to study alternative routes that avoid a drinking- water aquifer in Nebraska.
Republican move
Republicans trumped that move by tying the Keystone deadline to the payroll tax cut extension and including a provision allowing Nebraska and TransCanada time to find an alternative route in the state if Keystone XL is approved.
TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said that if the pipeline is approved, the company could start building other portions of it during the selection and evaluation of its route through Nebraska.
But Anthony Swift, staff lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which opposes Keystone XL, said it would be illegal for the U.S. to approve the pipeline without knowing and studying the final Nebraska route.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said last week that the department “will make an appropriate decision consistent with relevant law.”
TransCanada options
Cunha declined to say what TransCanada will do if the administration rejects the pipeline.
It could reapply, making changes to address the basis of the rejection, but the revised application would have to go through the same lengthy review process, said William Bumpers, a lawyer with Washington-based Baker Botts who has represented energy companies.
Republicans say construction of the pipeline would create 20,000 jobs and make America more energy secure.
The American Petroleum Institute, an oil-industry group leading an election-year campaign to push Americans to vote on the basis of energy issues, warned of major consequences for Obama if Keystone XL is rejected.
Pipeline opponents are running their own campaigns, contending the project would create at most 6,000 temporary jobs, promote an especially dirty form of oil and possibly pollute groundwater.
Swift, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said pipeline opponents are spotlighting information that they believe is not getting enough attention – rejecting, for example, proponents’ contention that the pipeline would reduce reliance on foreign oil.
Effect on imports?
They point to a government study that found Keystone wouldn’t affect U.S. oil imports from Canada through 2030.
Swift also said Gulf refiners, such as San Antonio-based Valero, could export their refined products and enjoy tax benefits.
Valero spokesman Bill Day said, however, that crude from Keystone XL would be mixed with oil from other sources at Valero’s Port Arthur refinery, and that most of that refinery’s production goes to domestic uses.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s become a political issue rather than an economic issue,” Day said.
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Exclusive: Republicans move to control Keystone approval
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-usa-keystone-bill-idUSTRE80A28C20120111?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Politics+News%29
WASHINGTON | Wed Jan 11, 2012 5:54pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional Republicans, who are urging President Barack Obama to back the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline, are now working on plans to take the reins of approval from the hands of the president should the White House say no.
North Dakota Senator John Hoeven, whose state is counting on the pipeline to help move its newfound bounty of shale oil, is drafting legislation that would see Congress give the green light to the project by using its constitutional powers to regulate commerce with foreign nations, an aide told Reuters.
After delaying the project past the November 2012 election, Obama was compelled by Congress to decide by February 21 on whether to approve the pipeline that would sharply boost the flow of oil from Canada's oil sands.
Should Obama reject the project, Senate Republicans would look at a bill that would force the go-ahead so work could begin on the $7 billion pipeline, save for a portion going through Nebraska, where the state government continues work on an alternate route, said Ryan Bernstein, an energy adviser to Hoeven.
He said Hoeven is working on the new approach with other key Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Richard Lugar, David Vitter, Lisa Murkowski and Mike Johanns.
TransCanada Corp's oil sands pipeline has put Obama in a political bind at the start of what is expected to be a difficult re-election campaign, and has become a useful tool for Republicans seeking to portray Obama as dithering on a project that they say would create 20,000 jobs.
PIPELINE BECOMES ELECTION ISSUE
Environmental groups, an important part of Obama's political
base, have made defeating the line a top priority. They are concerned about the carbon emissions that come from processing the oil sands, and they argue the project will create fewer than 5,000 jobs.
The White House in November delayed its decision on Keystone to find a new route around environmentally sensitive lands in the Nebraska portion of its route. This effectively punted the decision beyond the November U.S. presidential election.
Republicans struck back by inserting language in the December payroll tax cut bill that gave Obama 60 days to grant a permit for the project or explain why it was not in the national interest.
Republicans hope that rising gasoline prices will increase pressure on the White House as the United States pushes for more sanctions on Iran to discourage countries from buying its oil.
Lugar, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said it does not make sense to slow an oil pipeline from a reliable supplier such as Canada.
"Even if in the future we do not ourselves consume all the Canadian oil imported, having that crude in the U.S. system would give us tremendous flexibility to deal with supply shortages caused by conflict, political manipulation, terrorism, or natural disaster," Lugar said in a January 6 letter to Obama.
'ANY AND ALL LEGISLATIVE OPTIONS' IN PLAY
A spokesman for House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner declined to comment on whether House Republicans would seek to include a new Keystone provision in legislation that will be needed to extend the payroll tax cut that expires on February 29.
The White House and State Department have laid some ground for saying no, said Lee Terry, a Republican representative from Nebraska who is a prominent advocate for Keystone on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
In December, the administration said imposing the 60-day deadline could violate environmental laws, effectively ruling out a permit.
A majority of voters support the pipeline, Rasmussen poll results from late December show, and most labor unions support it too. Saying "no" to the pipeline could turn it into an election issue, Terry said in an interview.
Obama could try to appease both sides by declaring the project is in the national interest, but making a permit contingent on further study of routes through Nebraska.
But Terry said he believes Republicans will consider "any and all legislative options" if the pipeline is delayed further, including but not limited to making it part of the next payroll tax package.
"Right now, I think everything is on the table," he said.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Thugbama is pandering to his eco-nazi base.
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Keystone XL Pipeline And Jobs — Put Up Or Shut Up, Obama
Investor's Business Daily ^ | January 15, 2012 | IBD staff
Posted on January 15, 2012 2:09:19 PM EST by raptor22
Politics: The day after the president announces he would reward businesses that bring jobs into the U.S., the Chamber of Commerce asks: What about the pipeline from Canada that would bring both jobs and energy?
The irony was mind-boggling when President Obama addressed a group of business leaders at the White House last Wednesday on his plans to reward "insourcing."
"There are workers ready to work right now," he told them. "In the next few weeks, I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to bring jobs home and invest in America — and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. Because there is opportunity to be had right here."
Indeed, there are opportunities right now for companies to bring jobs to the U.S. and workers ready to fill them, as U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue reminded Obama the next day during his "State of American Business 2012" address.
"We can put 20,000 Americans to work right away and up to 250,000 over the life of the project," Donohue said. "Labor unions and the business community alike are urging President Obama to act in the best interests of our national security and our workers, and approve the pipeline."
It would be in the president's best political interests as well, helping lower energy prices and creating jobs in an economy struggling to do so. Even a number of unions, a major part of the Democratic base, are backing the project.
They include the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the International Union of Operating Engineers, the Teamsters, the Laborers' International Union, the Building & Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO and the United Association of Plumbers & Pipe Fitters for the United States & Canada. They want the jobs Keystone XL would bring.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
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http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2012/01/only-obama-and-big-green-oppose-keystone-pipeline/2099701
More disgraceful crap from Ghettobama
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http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-to-deny-keystone-pipeline-2012-1
obama is to jobs like Sandusky is to baby sitting.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-to-deny-keystone-pipeline-2012-1
obama is to jobs like Sandusky is to baby sitting.
:-[ :-[
He truely is the worst thing to happen to this country in recent history.
He proves it with every fucking decision he makes.
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:-[ :-[
He truely is the worst thing to happen to this country in recent history.
He proves it with every fucking decision he makes.
As are those who voted for him. I blame them, not him as much.
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Canadian Leader Says He's Profoundly Disappointed Obama Turned Down the Keystone XL Pipeline
TORONTO January 18, 2012 (AP)
Canadian leader says he's profoundly disappointed Obama turned down the Keystone XL pipeline.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canadian-leader-profoundly-disappointed-obama-turned-keystone-xl-15388481
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Canada Disappointed Over Pipeline Rejection
By ROB GILLIES Associated Press
TORONTO January 18, 2012 (AP)
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canada-disappointed-pipeline-rejection-15388586
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper says he told Barack Obama he was profoundly disappointed after the U.S. president called to tell him the administration rejected a plan to build an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.
Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Harper, said Wednesday that Obama explained the decision was not on the merits of the Keystone XL pipeline, but rather on the "arbitrary nature" of the Feb. 21 deadline set by a Republicans as part of tax measure he signed.
Obama said the decision was without prejudice, meaning that TransCanada is free to reapply.
MacDougall says Harper told Obama that he hoped the pipeline would ultimately be approved given the jobs it would create both in Canada and the U.S.