Free Republic

Energy Policy: The president falsely claims that the jobs created by the pipeline from Canada would be but a "blip relative to the need," ignoring his own State Department and the unions that support him. At the rate President Obama is going, he may claim that building the Keystone XL pipeline will actually cost jobs. In an interview with the New York Times last Saturday, he argued that the best estimate is 2,000 initial construction jobs followed by no more than an additional 100 jobs, a mere "blip." The newspaper's transcript of the interview showed Obama chuckling dismissively as he...

When it comes to the facts and how they are portrayed in Washington, it is a subjective thing. On any given issue, the facts are manipulated so they will appear to support a particular argument. We may want to deny it, but both sides of the political spectrum do this. So, when President Obama doubled down against the Keystone Pipeline in Chattanooga, TN yesterday, it was no surprise that he chose his own facts to support his argument that the pipeline was not a jobs plan. Hat tip to Texas Fred. Fox News - President Obama doubled down Tuesday on...

So… is that kind of like how aggressively pushing for federal, i.e. taxpayer “investment” in public-sector infrastructure projects but actively blocking private-sector ones is “not a jobs plan”? Or, maybe it’s more along the basic lines of how more Keynesian stimulus, deficit spending, increased regulation, and top-down market interference is “not a jobs plan”? Yeah, I think that’s the one. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO If they’ve got a better plan to bring back more manufacturing jobs here to Tennessee and around the country, then let them know — let me know. I want to hear them. If they’ve...

President Obama doubled down Tuesday on his claim that the Keystone XL oil pipeline would create just a handful of jobs, despite being hammered by Republicans and fact-checkers alike for the claim. The president addressed Keystone during a speech in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he challenged Republicans to come up with new jobs proposals. "They keep on talking about this -- an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that's estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That's not a jobs plan," Obama said.

President Barack Obama’s latest critique of the Keystone XL oil pipeline still leaves a path for approving the project — but its supporters may need to make concessions to blunt its impact on the climate, analysts said Monday. Obama’s remarks to The New York Times echoed some of the most potent criticisms offered by Keystone’s opponents, scoffing at GOP claims about job creation and warning that the pipeline might even raise gasoline prices. He also said Canada “could potentially be doing more” to counteract the greenhouse gas emissions being unleashed from Alberta’s oil sands, the major reason for climate activists’...

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said. “There is no evidence that that’s true.” He then blamed Canada for not “doing more” to prevent carbon emissions from oil sands. Obama continued, “I meant what I said; I'm going to evaluate this based on whether or not this is going to significantly contribute to carbon in our atmosphere. And there is no doubt that Canada at the source in those...

American greenies imagine they can save the planet by stopping construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, but in the real world they will expose Mother Gaia (and human beings) to greater harm by forcing more oil to be transported by rail. Pipelines are far safer than rail transportation, as we are reminded by the horror that engulfed much of the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec in flames. Thirteen people are known dead, but as many as 50 are missing, while charred bodies still are being pulled from the ruins. This reality should haunt the nightmares of greenies, people generally given to...

WASHINGTON -- The type of crude oil that would be pumped through the Keystone XL pipeline is no more likely to corrode pipelines or heighten the chance of leaks than other kinds of petroleum, according to a study by the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. The finding rebuts one concern raised by opponents of the controversial 1,700-mile Canada-to-Texas pipeline. They have long argued that pipelines are more prone to corrosion and leaks if they carry diluted bitumen, the tar-like substance extracted in Alberta mostly by strip-mining, mixed with...

The Keystone XL pipeline will not be built unless it can be shown that it will not lead to a net increase in carbon emissions, President Barack Obama declared in a major Tuesday speech on climate change at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. While appearing to appease environmentalists, the announcement could mean that the project will move forward. "Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our national interest," he said. "And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net...

Obama: No to Keystone If it Increases 'Emissions' Daniel Halper June 25, 2013 1:32 PM In President Obama's climate change speech set for later today, he'll reportedly say that the Keystone pipeline shouldn't be built if it hurts the environment. The Huffington Post reports, "President Barack Obama will ask the State Department not to approve the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline unless it can first determine that it will not lead to a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, a senior administration official told The Huffington Post." The liberal website adds: The president has avoided weighing in on...

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

Friday’s jobs numbers from the Labor Department show that President Obama needs to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Even with 175,000 jobs created in May, there are 2.4 million fewer jobs in America than at the start of the recession in December 2007.Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, to bring oil from Canada to our refineries near the Gulf of Mexico, would create jobs, both for constructing the pipeline and for refining the oil. But President Obama has delayed the pipeline’s approval, citing safety concerns.Pipelines have been used to transport natural gas and oil, including from Canada to the...

WASHINGTON — Building the $5.3 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline across the middle of the United States will require thousands of workers and millions of pounds of steel. It will also require a lot of smelly dead rats. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service this month said that Keystone's proposed route across Nebraska put the endangered American burying beetle at risk. The agency said the black and orange-spotted insect could be spared, and the project move forward, if proper procedure is followed. That means pipeline builder TransCanada Corp. will have to trap and relocate the one-inch beetles, using frozen rats...

We’re used to hearing that Republicans are the anti-science party, but that criticism is especially hard to take in light of Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s new video, warning of the dangers of building the Keystone XL pipeline. We’ve also been assured that conservatives don’t understand the nuances of metaphor, but there’s just something about Grijalva playing politics while wearing a “borrowed lab coat” and pretending to be a scientist that makes you miss Al Gore’s relatively sophisticated hucksterism. The video’s so bad, in fact, that the National Republican Congressional Committee is urging people to view it, calling it a “must watch.”...

House Republicans pushed through a bill Wednesday to bypass the president to speed approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas. Democrats criticized the legislation as a blatant attempt to allow a foreign company to avoid environmental review. The bill was approved, 241-175, largely along party lines. Republicans said the measure was needed to ensure that the long-delayed pipeline, first proposed in 2008, is built. "This is the most studied pipeline in the history of mankind," said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., the bill's sponsor. "When is enough enough?" added Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif. "Five years? Six years?...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) -- A controversial oil pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast "absolutely needs to go ahead," Canada's prime minister said Thursday, and he warned that the oil will be transported through America one way or another.</p> <p>Stephen Harper addressed the Keystone XL project, a flashpoint in the debate over climate change, during a visit to New York City. The long-delayed project carrying oil from Canada's tar sands would need approval from the State Department, and Harper's remarks - with the U.S. ambassador to Canada, David Jacobson, in the audience - were meant to apply some pressure.</p>

Former Vice President Gore on Tuesday said "there's no such thing as ethical oil," slamming the notion that importing oil from U.S. ally Canada was better than doing so from unfriendly nations. “There’s no such thing as ethical oil. There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil,” Gore told Canada’s The Globe and Mail during a Tuesday event in Toronto. Gore was responding to Globe and Mail Editor in Chief John Stackhouse on whether it made a difference that oil sands from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would come from a democratic nation. U.S. backers of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline have pointed...

As the White House moves ever so slowly toward a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, some environmental groups used Monday — Earth Day — to remind the president that approval of the massive project would carry real consequences. “You’ll see … the biggest spread of peaceful civil disobedience in modern American history,” said Becky Bond, political director of the liberal activist group Credo. The organization has been among the loudest opponents of the proposed pipeline, which would carry oil sands from Alberta, Canada, south through the U.S. heartland to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Credo helped organize a San...

It’s Earth Day! The annual global observance when billions of people take time from their busy days to nurture, pamper, and otherwise kiss up to the universally revered world-deity Gaia. Well, not really, but it is a day when preachy environmentalists attempt to guilt-trip people for squatting on the planet they are forced to live on. More than usual that is.

At the latest Casey Research conference, respected investment analyst Porter Stansberry stood at the podium and predicted that the price of oil will fall below US$40 per barrel within the next 12 months. From my perspective, the pressures at play in the oil market are all pushing prices in the opposite direction: up. Global supplies are tightening, costs are rising, and demand is not falling.