President Obama is listening to my phone calls, but he's not listening to me on the Keystone XL pipeline. Nor is he listening to 145 former campaign staffers, who want him to live up to past words and reject TransCanada's big tar sands pipeline.
I suppose I should be happier: the President said yesterday that he will only approve Keystone XL if it "does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution." In the process, he even dishes on Congressional climate change deniers, saying, "We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society."
But in making climate change the pivotal issue in his Keystone XL decision, President Obama seems to toss all the other good arguments against Keystone XL in the wastebasket. I've never seen carbon emissions and climate change as the big reason for opposing the pipeline. Keystone XL is all risk and no benefit. It won't reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It will increase our gasoline prices. It won't produce nearly as many jobs as TransCanada has promised. It will send North American oil to China. And it can only be built by allowing a foreign company to seize American citizens' land by judicial force.
Climate change matters, but on Keystone XL, these other arguments should matter more. Making his decision hinge on carbon emissions too conveniently allows him to ignore the bigger problems with this pipeline.
The sooner the line is built, the sooner American wells can be turned up and American infrastructure can go back to hauling American oil.
the last I heard DB the oil will go on the world market. It won't help us at all
Of course it will help us. American oil is not being shipped and produced at a higher rate because our rail lines in ND and MN are clogged with Canadian oil. Canadian oil is already being shipped through the country and utilizing resources we need because they are willing to pay more.
I think President Obama, with his recent carbon emissions talk, is trying to please the people who have so far been disappointed in his reluctance to attack the climate change issue.
In other words, he's telling his base what he thinks they want to hear.
This sort of thing happens to every President eventually, I guess.
Incidentally, I do think he believes all this rubbish about how we ought to set a moral example to the world by reducing our carbon emissions, while they (Russia and China most particularly) are ramping up their coal burning apparatus with unprecedented fury.
And laughing at us all the while.
They, too, will suffocate in the general waste to which the human species is laying this earth. Maybe they'll stop laughing then.
I was following twitter during Obama's climate change speech yesterday. His non-answer regarding to Keystone had the biggest amount of backlash from all sides. Now that I've had a day to think about it I'm pretty sure what Obama just did:
1: He brought the Keystone XL project into the climate change debate. Making it seem to his base like he is taking Keystone and climate change seriously.
2: He is going to allow Keystone to proceed. His language was left vague enough to allow him to let it move ahead no matter what its climate impact will be.
This is a classic case of a politician trying to satisfy his base and the opposing special interest at the same time.
China is laughing at us, Stan? Maybe. But not for the reasons you think.
"China may one day be the world’s leader in combating climate change. In almost every way you cut it, China is already taking a much more aggressive approach toward climate change than the United States is."
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/05/china_cap_and_trade_carbon_tax_the_country_may_lead_the_global_climate_change.html
I agree, Cory. Obama ain't fooling me with his cutesy statement on Keystone. The rest of the statement on global climate change was fine, but long overdue. It comes too late in his presidency to matter. He's going down in history as someone who fiddled while the climate burned.
There are plenty of things to consider in deciding the Keystone issue. We know it, and he knows it. Saying it like he did was just a way to pander to the audience while leaving him a huge out.
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-water-pollution-2013-3?op=1
Well...on KXL, let's remember that they finally got Al Capone on tax evasion...not murder and racketeering.
While we sit and wonder why Obama didn't come straight out against KXL, the GOP is out saying that Obama and the Dems (Weiland) are against jobs. (I know...there's a joke in there somewhere...but not now)
Thune is running around like Chicken Little screaming doom if we move to renewable energy. 500,000 jobs...untold new expenses for families...plague...petulance...etc.
And the lie (GOP) is half way around the world while the truth is still putting its pants on.
Dammit Ben and Democratic Party...get in the game. Loved the DOMA piece...but hell, there is other stuff going on...fight back!
An activist court that subverts Congressional law with the VRA! Marty Jackley and Jason Gant are now free to play even more games to disenfranchise voters and Marty is spiking the ball in the end zone while we sit on our hands.
Fight back for voter rights for natives that were raped by an activist court!
Fight back for native rights being stripped on keeping native children with family and culture!
Fight for the environment!
Fight for alternative energy and the jobs and 'clean' money it will create!
Oh hell Ben...just fight! Fight Harder!
Please?
Jackley and Gant announce new cost savings for voting in Sioux Falls.
In an effort to save valuable taxpayer dollars, Jason Gant, with the support of AG Marty Jackal, announce that Sioux Falls will move to a one precinct super center.
The new super voting center will be located at Minnehaha Country Club. The Club will offer an unprecedented 4 different levels of voting booths.
The 1st level will feature valet parking and complimentary cocktails and hors d'oeuvres for selected members (5+ figure donors) and their guests.
2nd level voting will be in the lounge where selected voters will be offered 2-for-1 specials. This level is designed for those who are looking for value in buying their politicians and are willing to compromise on a few principals just to feel like they belong.
The 3rd level in the cart shed offers members of the Tea Party a free mullet haircut and tattoo, free cooking lessons from Paula Deen and a commemorative "Get a Brain Moran" bumper sticker.
Those not included will still be able to vote at a random single voting machine located in an undisclosed spot on the golf course. "Hey, voting should be fun," said Secretary of State Gant. "We're only thinking that the hunt makes it an adventure and fun for everyone."
To meet the demands on parking, Gant has generously offered level 4 voters free parking at the fairgrounds where people can take a free shuttle ($3 gas surcharge not included) to their selected voting booth.
When this reporter attempted to interrupt AG Marty Jakal's manscaping and pedicure session at the club, his staff responded that this new voting district also included all of the tribes in an effort to give them a once in a lifetime opportunity to experience Country Club life and would look into free parking vouchers to make it more convenient.
Jakal did point out that only Minnehaha CC membership ID's would be accepted as identification for voting.
Media turnout for the news conference was limited as there was a seminar on covering cute kittens trapped in trees and how to work them into personal interests like biking, fishing and beer.
Over at the SDWC there is a blaring headline that "A war on coal is a war on jobs." Isn't that how the GOP sold us on strip mining the Black Hills was a good idea?
Sick.
Anyone else feel that way when they see the scar in the Hills?
While Thune is screeching, Warren Buffet is creating jobs and saving the environment.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/09/wind-energy-investment-iowa/2147657/
Cory: we do seem to agree on something here. By staking the Keystone XL on its effect on climate change, he is in fact endorsing its completion. Since the source is the greatest concern with regard to carbon emissions, stopping Keystone would help only if it meant that the oil won't be extracted. It will, whether it flows this way or not. If the President means what he says (at least a possibility) then he will approve the pipeline.
As for the rest of your tired arguments, they amount to little or nothing. A pipeline bringing oil in from a secure source obviously increases our energy independence. If we refine it and sell it, that is value added to the U.S. economy. If we need it here because of some unforeseen disruption in foreign supplies, it will be available. It's absurd to argue the contrary.
As to your argument that increasing the supply of crude will increase the cost of gasoline, I can only say that I have not yet understood the principles of Corynomics or visited the planet where they apply. On this globe, increasing the supply lowers the costs. How many jobs it will create may be subject to question, but a lot of people will be employed in building and maintaining the pipeline and in refining the oil. Just right now we can use any jobs we can get. I understand that you and I have jobs, so perhaps we don't need to care.
Maybe the refined oil will go to China. I expect that it will go where there is a market for it. Where do you think it will go if pipelines carry it west?
You have no case.
How does this pipeline increase the supply of gasoline in South Dakota?
"The Pipeline Could Increase Gas Prices In The Midwest. Because the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline would relieve the current glut of oil in the Midwest, some energy analysts believe it would raise gasoline prices there. Energy expert Severin Borenstein told Media Matters: "If anything it will raise gas prices slightly in the Midwest by relieving the bottleneck on getting oil out of that area." Canadian economist Andrew Leach agreed, saying: "Long term, it's probably close to a wash, but if anything, it's a small increase from eliminating the crude glut in the Midwest." [Media Matters, 2/23/12]"
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/02/14/5-myths-about-keystone-xl-debunked/192668
Blanchard's bloviations aside, the only reason the rich, powerful oil lobby is rallying around TransCanada's project is they don't like being told no, even when they are wrong. The jobs are a small fraction of the proponents' claims, and the vast majority of them will disappear when the construction season ends. The sludge carried by the pipeline costs more to refine than regular crude, so the lifespan of the sludge industry is doomed to be shortlived as demand continues to decrease.
For all the vast sums paid to advertising agencies, silk-suited lobbyists and paid bloviators on mainstream and social media, there is so little at stake, other than the pride of Big Oil.
"""Maybe the refined oil will go to China. I expect that it will go where there is a market for it. Where do you think it will go if pipelines carry it west?"" There isn't a snowballs chance this oil will go west or we wouldn't be having this conversation right now Ken.
.
As to Cory's econ, there is a large difference in world market pricing and local pricing. There has been a consistent pricing differential in western SD of .35-.70 over the last few years so anyone saying XL will cost us is right on the money. We will pay the spread on WTI and freight both ways.
How do you know when Big Oil is lying?
Blanchard is oblivious to facts. He is spouting the oil company and Republican mythology.
Trans Canada, Phillips, and others are pushing for XL because it is really the only good way for them to get their really crude oil tars to world markets. Trans Canada in a Bloomberg News interview indicated their primary reason for the pipeline was to get the crude oil moved out of the US midwest so that gasoline prices could be increased 10 to 20 cents per gallon. The price increases have to do with local supply and demand not international demand.
Very little of what I heard pipeline proponents here in Winner say a few years ago has proven to be true. It was hype filled with more hot gas than the climate-destroying pollutants processed at the tar field.
There is no upside to XL and the downside is potential water pollution of rivers, streams and aquifers. Why any county commissioners are willing to risk the future existence of their towns and cities for a pitiful small amount of property taxes which would never cover even a fraction of spill cleanup costs is a mystery to me--- unless of course, they have swallowed the GOP mythology like a greedy dog or are getting their pockets lined in one way or another.
XL will help the petro dollars hit home from production, employment, equipment, etc. Those dollars that have enriched the Saudis will be spent in the US by the US even though we will pay a few % more for our pump fuel and gasoline in the upper Midwest and plains. There is an on ramp proposed near Baker to take a chunk of the Bakken and now Three Forks production south as well.
.
Is it enough profit to carry the burden of potential costs? Sen Maher's plan to tax at .02 per barrel with a cap for a clean up fund was vetoed so apparently we will have to depend on FEMA help when cleanup time comes, which it will.