Posted on 10/23/2010 9:23:35 AM PDT by Libloather
U.S. State Department defends Clinton remarks endorsing Canadian pipeline
09:39, October 22, 2010
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday defended his boss, State Secretary Hillary Clinton, on her remarks signaling support for the multi-billion- dollar pipeline project that carries Canadian oil to U.S. Gulf coast.
Toner said that Clinton also emphasized the U.S. need for cleaner energy resources while she said last week that she was " inclined" to back the project.
The 2,673-km Keystone XL pipeline would bring oil from tar sands of Canada's Alberta to refineries in Texas.
"But until that time, we need, frankly, to find energy sources in other areas as well, be they clean or dirty, and her words stand," said Toner.
Clinton's remarks stirred some controversy. Mike Johanns, senator from Nebraska where the pipeline would traverse, pushed back, calling her comment "premature." Numerous politicians from Nebraska demanded a thorough study of environmental impacts that the pipeline will have on the state's Sandhills and the Ogallala Aquifer.
Sierra Club Calls on Hillary Clinton to Weigh Risks of Toxic Pipeline to Farms, Water, Air
To all liberals, all oil is "dirty".
Electricity, though, is "clean" -- because it comes out of the wall plug.
Forget the polar bears and caribou, what about the prairie dogs and the "endangered" Texas prairie chicken (Mike Nesmith)? The herds of prairie dogs and prairie chickens will be decimated across the fruited plain due to their inability to copulate because of the pipeline running through their bedrooms.
sarc/
When I was growing up on the prairie, they were referred to as “The TAR Sands”.
YOMV, but I’m natural born Albertan, and remember such trivia.
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There is tar in the region — on roofs, and in the cigarette butts in ashtrays. The stuff they're going to ship in the pipeline isn't tar.
Fine...
how about "...crude bitumen, which has many of the properties of tar but contains more toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons than tar (which is higher in phenolics), ..."
That would, of course, be more technically correct and would eliminate the use of the technically incorrect colloquial "tar" in the sentence. I just fail to understand why calling it tar rather than bitumen is somehow bad politically.
Some interesting insights into the politics of the pipeline in this paper:
“Editorial, 10/24: Hillary Clinton undermines Keystone XL pipeline approval”
http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_2ca64efe-dc9a-11df-a210-001cc4c03286.html
“I just fail to understand why calling it tar rather than bitumen is somehow bad politically.”
It’s one of those “strange but true” things. “Tar” is the moniker of choice of the “environmentalists”, who want to shut down the operation. Apparently, “tar” has more negative connotations than “oil”. The industry, their supporters, and most disinterested bystanders call them “oil sands”.
As I said, you don’t need to read further than the label used; to tell what slant the article has.
It's from Xinhua, so it might just be translation. Or it might be style, "oil" is used in the sentence right before it. Or it might be intentional slant. Xinhua doesn't tend to be environmentalist in slant.
True enough — you can't tell the original author's slant from a translation. Otherwise: “tar” = opponent; “oil” = neutral to supporter.
BTW, it would suit China's interest just fine; if the U.S. refused to take any more oil from the oil-sands. That would spur on the building of the pipeline across the Rockies to a new west-coast tanker port — whence the oil would be shipped to China.
You know more about it than I do. Say, maybe Canada has a SHORTAGE of tar and the US is pumping it up there!
Pretty funny. At least the headline writer didn’t think it was a “sand” pipeline.
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