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Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation face a difficult balancing act. Their supporters who are advocates of renewable energy anticipate them to vote against the pipeline. President Obama has threatened to veto the present pipeline bill due to the fact it quick-circuits his administration’s assessment course of action. But Minnesota politicians who oppose the pipeline flirt with a attainable lengthy-term raise in oil train traffic on tracks that quite a few constituents say are already overloaded with railcars carrying flammable fuel. “It is a precarious position to be against oil train transport and to be against the Keystone pipeline,”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in Congress and a state supreme court have thrown the political hot potato known as Keystone XL straight back onto President Barack Obama's lap. So loath is Obama to making a decision about the proposed oil pipeline that deliberations have entered their sixth year — a period nearly as long as Obama's time in office. He's blamed the seemingly endless delays on bureaucratic formalities and parochial issues in Nebraska, even when skeptics claimed that the politics of the next election were giving the president cold feet. Now the election is over, the Nebraska issue is resolved,...

Want to know why the president and his team are stampeding to talk about global warming despite increasing public disinterest in the topic, a bitterly cold and snowy winter and deepening skepticism about the costs of clamping down on industry as the economy again falters? It turns out that money talks. From the NYT: “A billionaire retired investor is forging plans to spend as much as $100 million during the 2014 election, seeking to pressure federal and state officials to enact climate change measures through a hard-edge campaign of attack ads against governors and lawmakers. The donor, Tom Steyer, a...

The House on Friday passed a bill to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline hours after a Nebraska court ruled in favor of the proposed route. The legislation now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be approves. The White House has warned President Obama would veto the legislation. Passage fell largely along party lines, 266-153, with 28 Democrats joining nearly all Republicans in favor. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) voted "present." That is short of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The vote marked the 10th time the House has voted to authorize the...

**SNIP** Sharpton said, “This is the largest majority Republicans have had since the 1920s, and what will happen, and how we deal with our interests, when we have both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives dominated by the Republicans — one, we need to realize and recognize, had we voted like we should have we wouldn’t be here,” he said. “But secondly, all is not lost, the president can use veto power, which he already said he is going to do about the Keystone Pipeline legislation, and executive action.” “Even though the legislature is tied down, the executive...

Democrats launched the first filibuster of the new Congress on Thursday, objecting to the GOP’s effort to try to bring the Keystone XL pipeline bill to the floor early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried to schedule action early next week on the bill, and promised an open process, including allowing both sides to offer amendments to the bill — an attempt to break with the previous few years, when Democrats controlled the floor and kept a tight lid on amendments. But Democrats objected to Mr. McConnell’s request, forcing him to begin the procedure for breaking a filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appears to be touting the accomplishments of the new GOP-controlled Congress even before its members have gotten the chance to hammer out any legislation. In a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, the newly elected majority leader suggested that the growing signs of an economic recovery -- 5 percent GDP growth, 320,000 additional jobs in November, all-time highs in the markets on Wall Street and plunging gas prices, to name a few -- just might have something to do with the election of a Republican Congress. "After so many years of sluggish growth,...

President Obama said Tuesday he would veto any bill that tries to start construction on the Keystone XL pipeline before a federal review is finished — a process in its seventh year. You can argue whether Obama is being sincere in his desire to follow procedure, or just trying to run out the clock so he doesn't have to make a decision, but by any measure, six-plus years is a long time. Jason Russell tries to put this in perspective at the Washington Examiner by calculating what other things someone could do while Obama's reviews held up the pipeline. Among...

Video at link. (CNSNews.com) – Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, says President Barack Obama is “factually incorrect” to say that the Keystone XL Pipeline will not benefit Americans. At the press conference in Washington Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Gerard about Obama’s remarks in November about the pipeline, which, if approved, would transport crude oil from Canada and from two U.S. states to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, held a press conference with reporters on Jan. 6, 2015 following his annual State of American Energy speech in Washington, D.C. (CNSNews.com/Penny...

President Barack Obama will veto the Keystone XL bill if Congress passes a measure green-lighting the oil pipeline, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced on Tuesday. Newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline project as the first of the new Congress. The bill has some bipartisan support, but environmentalists and progressives have heavily lobbied the White House to oppose the pipeline.... Earnest added that the White House reviewed the text of the bill to authorize the pipeline on Monday....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's determined efforts to combat global warming face their biggest trial yet as Republicans take full control of Congress this week. The GOP vows to move fast and forcefully to roll back his environmental rules and force his hand on energy development. Related Stories New Congress Grapples With Energy The Wall Street Journal For President Obama, Going It Alone Has Its Risks The Wall Street JournalObama, GOP-led Congress prepare for veto showdowns Associated PressWhere Is U.S. Energy Policy Heading Over the Next Two Years? The Wall Street JournalObama, Congress Brace For Veto Showdowns Huffington Post...

Like a lot of other dramatic bluster coming south out of Canada this winter, the Keystone XL pipeline stands poised for its big approval fight this month. Advocates claim it will put Montana in the mix for North American energy independence. Opponents say it will allow the most polluting oil on the planet to contribute to global warming while putting water supplies at risk. The U.S. Senate fell one vote short of approving Keystone during its lame-duck session last month, even though President Barack Obama threatened to veto the measure. But what if it doesn’t matter? While the Keystone project...

For a symbolic issue, the Keystone pipeline has sure caused a lot of damage—to Canadian-American relations, to Democrats, to President Obama. And it feeds, underscores, or reflects a variety of political divisions, some of them quite bitter. I’ll get to Keystone’s victims shortly, but first the explanation of why the issue is purely symbolic. If the pipeline is built, it will carry oil from northern Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. If it is not built, the crude oil will be transported either to Canada’s west coast or to New Brunswick, a maritime province in the east, where it...

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline to transport crude oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast would only nominally benefit American consumers and workers. "There is very little impact - nominal impact - on U.S. gas prices, what the average American consumer cares about," Obama told reporters during an end-of-year press conference. In his strongest comments on the Canada-to-U.S. pipeline to date, Obama picked apart some of the most common arguments proponents have used to urge the president to approve it: that it would create jobs, lower domestic gasoline prices and...

The CEO of TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) says he doesn't see the oil industry's appetite for new pipelines faltering even though crude prices have skidded to the lowest point in more than five-years. In an interview in his downtown Calgary office, Russ Girling said he's seen ups and downs far more drastic over his career and expects the oilpatch will come out of the latest downturn in reasonably good shape. "There's a tremendous need to build irrespective of the price of the commodity right now," Girling said. "We're being pressed to get these facilities online as quickly as we possibly can."...

The new Republican-controlled Senate's first act in January will be approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. McConnell told reporters that the bill would be based on a measure that failed in the Senate last month that was co-sponsored by North Dakota Republican John Hoeven and Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu. "It'll be open for amendment," McConnell said. "I will hope that senators on both sides will offer energy-related amendments but there'll be no effort to try to micromanage the amendment process." Landrieu pushed for a Keystone vote in November in a last-ditch effort to...

The price of oil has fallen by nearly half in just six months, a surprising and steep plunge that has analysts arguing over whether this is a good or bad thing. The price of oil has fallen by nearly half in just six months, a surprising and steep plunge that has consumers cheering, producers howling and economists wringing their hands over whether this is a good or bad thing. The price of a barrel of oil is just under $56, down from a summer high of $107, and lower than at any time since the US was still in recession...

If you’re like most Americans, you haven’t been questioning the welcome drop in gasoline prices. You just fill ’er up and feel grateful that you’re spending less.But why has this remarkable drop come about? And what can we do to help keep prices lower?Some of it, unfortunately, is beyond our control. Worldwide demand for oil is down now. That always causes the cost of gasoline to drop.But the other side of the equation -- the part that is under our control -- has gone largely unheralded in many media accounts: the boom in U.S. energy production. Simply put, we’re producing...

The 18-year long reign of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has finally come to an end in Louisiana. In a landslide victory in Saturday’s runoff election, Republican Bill Cassidy defeated the incumbent and captured the ninth Senate seat for the GOP, capping off a victorious midterm election for his party. The road was rocky for Landrieu from the start. The public found out about her improper use of taxpayer funds, then the fact she doesn’t even own a home in Louisiana. Then, she dissed her constituents. Because of all her missteps and Cassidy’s growing lead, Democrats quickly gave up on Landrieu...

In what is likely a sign of things to come in 2016, the conservative Koch brothers-backed group Americans For Prosperity released an ad on Wednesday seeking to tie Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to controversial ObamaCare adviser Jonathan Gruber. Gruber made headlines earlier this year for saying it was the “stupidity of the American voter” that helped the Obama administration pass the Affordable Care Act. The ad says Landrieu repeated President Obama’s ObamaCare “Lie of the Year” that if you liked your healthcare plan you could keep it, before launching into the Gruber attack. “An ObamaCare architect bragged about deceiving Americans...