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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>

The environmentalist activist community has a new Public Enemy No. 1: Keystone XL. That’s the proposed 1,200-mile pipeline linking Canadian oil fields to Texas refineries. The project is up for debate at the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology this week – the latest in what is now a four-year-long national debate on the project. The facts have become nearly smothered by the small but vocal opposition, but the fact is the Keystone XL pipeline offers a safe, efficient and affordable means of transporting the resources our nation needs. Block the Keystone XL pipeline and Americans are going...

For them or against them, there’s really no disputing the facts.  Pipelines are the safest transportation option for energy goods.  And KeystoneXL is no exception.Critics of the KeystoneXL pipeline obscure the fact that pipelines are, statistically speaking, clearly the safest means of transporting needed resources from Point A to Point B. Pipelines transport more resources and do so with a lower rate of incident than any other method, from truck to rail to barge.Our pipeline infrastructure’s ability to transport the resources that our economy requires is unmatched. Rejection of state-of-the-art projects like KeystoneXL would represent a badly missed opportunity...

Energy: As the EPA snipes at the State Department's approval, Canada's natural resource minister says failure to approve the pipeline would seriously jeopardize our energy relationship and do nothing to save the earth. Joe Oliver, not amused by the continued delays in perhaps the most shovel-ready project since the pyramids, said Wednesday that rejection by the U.S. of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline "would represent a serious reversal in our long-standing energy relationship." This critical energy infrastructure project is also perhaps the most studied and approved. After a reroute at the behest of environmentalists allegedly concerned about the sensitive Ogallala...

---------------SIP--------------------------------------- . . .Perhaps a quick refresher on the benefits of Keystone are in order. First, notwithstanding the development of alternative energy sources, the world is going to continue to need oil; Oliver, quoting the International Energy Agency, says that global energy demand is expected to grow by at least 35 percent over the next 20 years. The notion, pushed by environmentalists, that blocking the oil sands will spur green energy is delusion. Second, energy independence is a long-sought national goal. We would no longer need OPEC, a cartel of countries with values, in many cases, antithetical to ours. Third,...

The powerful U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has once again rebuked the State Department over its positive environmental assessment of TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline. In a lengthy, highly technical letter sent Monday to the top State Department officials overseeing the pipeline permit process, the EPA raises serious concerns about the project's carbon footprint and criticizes the department's draft analysis. It urges the State Department to rethink its finding that the controversial pipeline would not significantly spur production of Alberta's carbon-intensive oilsands or boost greenhouse gas emissions. The letter, signed by EPA official Cynthia Giles, said the State assessment included "insufficient...

If decision-makers take as long to act on this issue as they did on gay rights, we will all be wearing scuba masks to rallies A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the US Gulf coast the "Selma and Stonewall" of the climate movement. Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilised record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30...

Do you suppose the eco-trendy crowd really, carefully thought this one through before jumping on the self-righteously outraged bandwagon? I have some pretty severe doubts on the matter, but they're in this thing, and they're certainly not going to back down now that they've invested so much time, money, and media coverage to the issue --- even though killing the Keystone XL pipeline will not prevent oil companies from developing Canada's tar sands even a little bit. Stopping their product from moving through pipelines simply means that they’ll have to seek other markets, i.e. shipping it to China via tankers,...

Climate Change: The man who once compared coal trains to Nazi boxcars headed to crematoria leaves government service to fight what he calls the "pipeline to disaster" and promote his brand of climate quackery. In 2007, Dr. James Hansen testified before the Iowa Utilities Board not in his capacity as a government employee but, in his words, "as a private citizen, a resident of Kintnersville, Pa., on behalf of the planet, of life on Earth, including all species." Hansen told the board, "If we cannot stop the building of more coal-fired power plants, those coal trains will be death trains...

My Conservative Campaign Committee is in Boston filming ads in support of Michael Sullivan for U.S. Senate. I consistently heard the same glowing reviews of Mike's service from voters – a strong trustworthy man of character and principles. In the words of one voter, “Mike has a knack for showing up and setting things right”. It is also clear that Sullivan has been doing the right things over a long period of time as “proven” and “tested” kept coming up in conversations about Mike. Another voter shared that he has followed Mike Sullivan's career over the years and has been...

Senate votes on climate change and the Keystone XL oil pipeline laid bare divisions among Democrats — and underscored why the White House, not Congress, will be where the critical climate decisions reside in President Obama’s second term.Several votes during the freewheeling debate over a nonbinding budget plan provided a political barometer of where the chamber, including vulnerable Democrats, stand on the topics. Advocates of the proposed pipeline scored a symbolic victory Friday when 62 lawmakers voted for an amendment backing the project to bring oil from Canadian tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. Seventeen Democrats supported Sen....

BOSTON — San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer is giving Democrats a taste of the divisive, big-spending primary battles that have caused Republicans so much heartburn over the past four years.And he says it’s for their own good.The former hedge fund trader-turned-philanthropist is bankrolling a far-flung political operation pushing environmental causes and candidates, including his pricey effort to torpedo the Keystone XL oil pipeline. He's increasingly drawing scrutiny for trying to take down the Senate candidacy of Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat who has expressed support for Keystone.Steyer is signaling that his efforts against Lynch are just the beginning of...

It’s one thing for citizens to have a healthy debate about a controversial issue affecting a jurisdiction — but it’s another entirely to take the discussion outside those boundaries. That’s exactly what Thomas Homer-Dixon did with his editorial page piece that appeared in the New York Times on Monday, excoriating the oilsands and suggesting it would be good for Canada if President Barack Obama does not allow the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The Waterloo University professor who is at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School for International Affairs makes...

A California billionaire is pledging to spend as much of his fortune as necessary to make climate change “the defining issue of our generation.” Tom Steyer, who made his riches as a hedge fund manager, told The Hill on Tuesday that he wants to make climate change a campaign issue for years to come and Democratic support for environmental protections as widespread as support for gay marriage and immigration reform. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people. We want a smashing victory,” Steyer said of candidates he judges to be on the...

An editorial on Friday’s Chicago Tribune called President Barack Obama to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, saying the decision is “an easy one” and “long overdue.”‘ Even if the oil flowing through Keystone would be exported, the U.S. would still benefit from the pipeline construction and refinery jobs created, the Tribune said. “Allow America to draw on its bounty,” the newspaper said.

The Environmental Protection Agency will move ahead Friday with rules requiring cleaner gasoline and cars nationwide, despite fierce protests from the oil industry and some conservative Democrats, according to several individuals briefed on the matter. The proposed rules — which had been stuck in regulatory limbo since December 2011 in the face of intense political opposition — would cut the amount of sulfur in U.S. gasoline by two-thirds and impose fleetwide pollution limits on new vehicles by 2017. The regulation enjoys support from auto companies, state regulators, environmental groups and equipment manufacturers. But oil industry officials and their congressional allies...

President Obama’s Energy secretary nominee regards a carbon tax as one of the simplest ways to move the energy industry towards clean technologies, though he notes that government would have to come up with a plan to mitigate the burden this tax places on poor people, who would pay the most. “Ultimately, it has to be cheaper to capture and store it than to release it and pay a price,” MIT professor and Energy nominee Ernest Moniz told the Switch Energy Project in an interview last year. “If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few...

Delays in federal permitting for oil and gas exploration on public land is likely reducing national energy production and depriving the federal government of revenue, according to a federal report released Friday. The report is the latest addition to a mounting body of evidence undercutting the administration’s claims that it has fostered increased oil and gas production, critics say. Production on lands the federal government controls has plummeted during Barack Obama’s presidency. The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) inspector general examined 1,881 applications for drilling permits on public land. Fewer than 4 percent of those applications were “recent,” or...

A group at the forefront of opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and a deep-pocketed environmentalist are warning pro-Keystone Democrats that their position could draw them opposition in 2014 primary races. The political arm of 350.org recently made its first-ever endorsement, backing Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) over Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a pipeline supporter, in the upcoming special election to replace former Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Hedge fund billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer and young activists have also jumped in , going after Lynch over his Keystone backing. Now, 350 Action and an aide to Steyer say involvement in...

Oil prices could rise to anywhere between $150 and $270 a barrel by 2020 as demand growth in emerging markets like India and China out paces expected supply, the OECD said Wednesday. The report shows the central role that Asian oil demand will play in determining prices, even as the U.S. reduces its need for energy imports amid a surge in its unconventional hydrocarbons production. Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy reported China overtook the U.S. as the world's largest net oil importer.

With massive protests already planned, environmentalists see new signs Obama is going their way. Environmentalists are promising mass arrests and acts of civil disobedience if the Obama administration moves forward with a controversial pipeline project through the Midwest — even as Obama's political arm seeks to use the project in its latest fundraiser. Opponents to the Keystone XL pipeline, which would run from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, said they have more than 50,000 recruits ready to be jailed as part of one of the largest broad-scale direct-action protests in their movement's history. "With our Keystone XL pledge of...

US House Energy and Commerce Committee members released a discussion draft of legislation designed to jump-start approval of the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project. The draft bill by Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) would eliminate the need for a presidential permit and find that the Aug. 26, 2011, final environmental impact statement issued by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton satisfied all National Environmental Policy Act requirements. Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and John Barrow (D-Ga.) cosponsored the proposal, which also would limit legal challenges to the project so it would not be delayed further. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred...

Senate Democrats finally released their first budget plan in four years this month: It offers nearly $1 trillion in new taxes, an end to sequester budget savings, and almost no new spending restraint. Despite the failure of the 2009 stimulus package, Democrats also want an extra $100 billion to create jobs on infrastructure projects, few of which would be “shovel-ready” enough to hire workers anytime soon. President Obama won’t release his own budget till April, but he has a golden opportunity to improve on the Senate budget and create real jobs. All he has to do is end his four-year...

March 16, 2013 Did Obama Just Block Keystone? Stanley Kurtz Deciding whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline is surely one of the toughest challenges of Barack Obama’s presidency. He hasn’t made up his mind yet, of course. Or has he?Bloomberg reports that the Obama administration “is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving major projects.� Up to now, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), federally approved projects had to consider potential impacts like dangerous spills or air pollution, but not global warming. Directing all...

While many have long seen America as the global bad boy, everybody likes Canada. If Uncle Sam tucks his pack of Marlboros under his T-shirt sleeve and plays by his own rules, the Canadian moose -- or whatever their Uncle Sam equivalent is -- always wears his blue blazer and school tie and does his chores without being asked. Canada is a global citizen, a good neighbor, a northern Puerto Rico with an EU sensibility that earns its gold stars from the United Nations every day. This fact should have relevance below the 49th parallel. Right now, we're all...

House Republicans' big meeting with President Obama on the Hill yesterday didn't yield any sudden changes of heart on reaching some kind of big deficit bargain (shocking, considering how pure and straightforward I'm sure the president's motives were, hem hem), but the president also kept his cards close to the vest on energy and how his administration is going to play the Keystone pipeline when Republicans pushed him on it. The White House insists that he didn’t provide any clues as to which way internal deliberations are leaning, but he did take a moment to rag on the economic benefits...

I HOPE the president turns down the Keystone XL oil pipeline. (Who wants the U.S. to facilitate the dirtiest extraction of the dirtiest crude from tar sands in Canada’s far north?) But I don’t think he will. So I hope that Bill McKibben and his 350.org coalition go crazy. I’m talking chain-themselves-to-the-White-House-fence-stop-traffic-at-the-Capitol kind of crazy, because I think if we all make enough noise about this, we might be able to trade a lousy Keystone pipeline for some really good systemic responses to climate change. We don’t get such an opportunity often — namely, a second-term Democratic president who is...

Last Friday, at 3:40 p.m., the State Department released its “Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement” for the highly contentious Keystone XL pipeline, which Canada hopes to build to move its tar sands oil to refineries in the United States. In effect, the statement said there were no environmental impediments that would prevent President Obama from approving the pipeline. Two hours and 20 minutes later, I received a blast e-mail containing a statement by James Hansen, the head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA — i.e., NASA’s chief climate scientist. “Keystone XL, if the public were to allow...

PRESIDENT OBAMA began his second term with a promise to push harder on energy and climate change. The events of the past week remind us that he wonÂ’t have to contend just with Republicans and coal-state Democrats determined to oppose reasonable measures to combat global warming. He will also have to sidestep environmentalists demanding that he fight the wrong battles. Last Friday, the State Department released a new draft analysis of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, opposition to which has become a counterproductive obsession of many in the environmental movement. In its 2,000 pages, the report dismantled the case that...

Ed. note: This piece was first published on Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog.If not for the US government’s latest demonstration of incompetence that played out at the end of last week (a.k.a. sequestration), the top news story might have been a report issued by the US State Department late Friday.The report was the Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the Keystone XL Pipeline project, and it was unwelcome news for environmentalists who have been protesting the crude pipeline extension that would link Canada’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries.It may seem arbitrary, given the large number of oil and...

War On Energy: In yet another clean bill of health, the State Department's draft review says the pipeline from Canada will not affect global warming or harm aquifers it crosses. But it will create jobs and economic growth. The U.S. State Department's second Keystone XL supplemental environmental impact statement, which represents the project's fourth environmental review, finds the pipeline would not accelerate global greenhouse gas emissions or significantly harm the natural habitats along its route. This sent the administration's environmentalist base into spasms of hysteria. Greenies had warned that the extraction of crude from Alberta's oil sands would release dangerous...

There must be some fans of The Walking Dead at the White House and the DNC these days, because there are apparently some bad ideas which never die, no matter how many stakes you drive through them. One of these is the carbon tax, not so subtly invoked during the State of the Union address, and now making a comeback with some of the usual list of suspects in Congress. But this time it may be coming with a twist. You want your Keystone XL pipeline and all of the jobs, opportunity and energy advantages it offers? Well show us...

From Tom Nelson: Keystone pipeline passes environmental review: It’s the [CO2-induced] end of the world as the Sierra Club knows it, and I feel fineKeystone XL pipeline would have little impact on climate change, State Department analysis says – The Washington Post The State Department released a draft environmental impact assessment of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline Friday afternoon, suggesting the project would have little impact on climate change. Live Blogging the Keystone XL Environmental Assessment Release | DeSmogBlog Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune just released the following reaction in a press release just sent out:“The Sierra Club...

The Obama administration today moved one step closer to approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, concluding in a draft environmental impact statement that the project would not accelerate global greenhouse gas emissions or significantly harm the natural habitats along its route. The report, done by the State Department,  suggests that the proposed 875-mile pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska, has cleared a significant hurdle on its way to President Obama’s desk for final consideration.“The approval or denial of any one crude oil transport project,...

TransCanada has only been waiting for the go-ahead for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline for, oh, four or so years now, and the State Department has now several times concluded that the pipeline poses no real reason for environmental alarm — despite the vociferous protestations of its eco-critics. After having released an environmental impact review in 2011 that basically concluded that the project poses no real threats, State released another revised environmental impact review on Friday afternoon that… also basically concludes that the project poses no real threats. It very carefully avoids making any recommendations for specific action on the...

The State Department released preliminary findings of a new environmental impact study surrounding the controversial Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, but made no clear recommendation as to whether the the pipeline should be held up for environmental or economic reasons. Reporters trying to make sense of the nearly 2,000 pages of findings were flummoxed by one senior State Department official who stressed that the document “does not come out one way or the other and make a decision” about whether the U.S. should or should not go forward with the project. Years of heated debate have surrounded the proposed 1,700...

US Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) were joined by 18 other senators from both parties as they urged newly confirmed Secretary of State John F. Kerry to approve the proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline during this year’s first quarter. “The State Department received the new route approved by the state of Nebraska on Jan. 22…but [it] has yet to inform the public and stakeholders of a definitive process for the final decision,” the 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans said in their Feb. 22 letter. “We urge you as Secretary of State to ensure that this decision...

President Obama faces a knotty decision in whether to approve the much-delayed Keystone oil pipeline: a choice between alienating environmental advocates who overwhelmingly supported his candidacy or causing a deep and perhaps lasting rift with Canada. Canada, the United States' most important trading partner and a close ally on Iran and Afghanistan, is counting on the pipeline to propel more growth in its oil patch, a vital engine for its economy. Its leaders have made it clear that an American rejection would be viewed as an unneighborly act and could bring retaliation. Secretary of State John F. Kerry's first meeting...

Environmental groups gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Sunday and marched on the White House for a climate change rally largely aimed at pressuring President Obama to reject the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Organizers said 35,000 activists attended the rally, where speakers portrayed the battle over the pipeline as a struggle between grassroots green groups and deep-pocketed special interests. “They’ve got the lobbyists. They’ve got the super-PACs. They made the campaign contributions. They’ve got this town in their pockets — they have got the situation under control. And then you show up. And then we show up....

Taxes: The president may try to satisfy both environmentalists and pro-growth blocs by tying the shovel-ready project curiously left out of the State of the Union to just-introduced carbon-tax legislation. Having failed to lower the sea levels in his first term, President Obama, in the first SOTU of his second term, highlighted the need for fighting climate change and proposed an Energy Security Trust Fund to siphon off money from those who actually produce abundant and useable energy to fund alternative energy sources which constitute a rounding error in the percent of energy produced by various sources. Two days later,...

A large global warming protest with a very Canadian connection is scheduled for Sunday February 17th at the White House. The protest, organized by the Sierra Club and 350.org, is being dubbed as the biggest climate rally in U.S. history and is meant to encourage President Obama to veto the construction of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil from northern Alberta down to the Gulf of Mexico. In a telephone interview with Yahoo! Canada News, 350.org's Daniel Kessler said that he is expecting tens of thousands of people including "several groups" from Canada. Obama is expected to...

Energy: The president's proposed Energy Security Fund will stifle the private energy sector boom and provide permanent funding for future Solyndras and electric cars that nobody wants. And what about that pipeline, sir? A nonexistent crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and in justifying his proposal for a cap-and-tax scheme, President Obama claimed in his State Of The Union that "the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15." He was lying. The fact is, according to new data released quietly last October by Britain's Met Office, the world's natural post-Ice Age warming trend stopped...

The Keystone XL Pipeline has been viewed as a means to alleviate several problems: reducing America's dependency upon Middle East Oil, providing a source for America's refining of oil if America ever decides to face reality and challenge the environmentalist insistence against building domestic refineries, lowering the price of fuel at the pump (since increasing pump prices directly influences the price of all domestic products, everything moves by oil), providing employment for many Americans in the construction of the pipeline and at the port, and an assurance of a reliable source of crude (in case we decide to accept reality)....

Pipelines used to be things that were just built without blinking. It is said that there are enough pipelines now in the US to encircle the Earth 25 times with enough left over to also tie a bow around it. Today, getting a pipeline built is not so easy - there are too many environmental concerns and the industry has become highly polarized. But here’s one thing that could bring everyone together: pipeline safety technology. And it’s something we all want, especially for those who live along the thousands of miles of aging pipeline routes that carry hazardous liquids. Spawned...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Eight people were arrested Monday at a construction site for the Keystone XL oil pipeline in central Oklahoma, including one man who locked himself to a crane-like piece of machinery, authorities said. The two women and six men were arrested on trespassing complaints at the site near the town of Schoolton, Seminole County sheriff's Chief Deputy Chris Conn said. On woman also was cited for resisting arrest. None of their names has been released. "We had several individuals on private property who refused to leave, and they were arrested for trespassing," Conn said. "One individual was...

Will be speaking about Keystone XL pipeline.

Canadians worried US president won’t honor Nebraska governor’s decision The Canadian government has suddenly turned edgy about hopes of seeing TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline clearing its final regulatory hurdle and spreading fresh optimism among Alberta oil sands and Bakken producers. Now that Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has sent a letter to President Barack Obama endorsing TransCanada’s proposed rerouting of the pipeline to avoid the state’s ecologically sensitive Sandhills region, the final verdict rests with the U.S. State Department which must issue a Presidential Permit for any pipeline crossing the Canada-U.S. border. At the same time a letter signed by 53...

Republicans jumped on the news that the Obama administration is delaying judgment on the Keystone XL pipeline by another six months. “Americans have already waited >4yrs for #KXL, time for POTUS to say ‘yes,’” said a 11:14 a.m. tweet from the office of House Speaker Rep. John Boehner. Americans have already waited >4yrs for #KXL, time for POTUS to say “yes” #4jobs j.mp/WCTYV3 via @housecommerce — Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) February 1, 2013

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The Obama administration's decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline will not be made until at least June, a U.S. official said, which would delay the project for months and frustrate backers of Canada's oil sands. "We're talking the beginning of summer at the earliest," said the source, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the TransCanada Corp project, which has been pending for more than four and a half years. "It's not weeks until the final decision. It's months." A series of steps still have to be taken...