Free Republic

The State Department today released its long-awaited environmental impact analysis of the Keystone XL pipeline. The analysis is key because President Obama announced last summer he would not approve the pipeline unless it was found to have no significant impact on climate change. And that’s what the analysis finds. It argues, as many other analysts have concluded, that if we block the pipeline, Canada will just ship the oil out by rail. So, what public policy reason is there to block the pipeline? There really isn’t one. Indeed, the environmentalists' obsession with Keystone began as a gigantic mistake. Two and...

Keystone opponents vow civil disobedience, vigils starting Monday Published February 01, 2014 FoxNews.com Environmentalists and other opponents of the Keystone XL Pipeline are ramping up their opposition to the project following the release Friday of a largely favorable State Department report -- vowing to hold vigils, jump into the November elections and even perform acts of civil disobedience. The report raising no major environmental concerns bolster the hopes of the oil industry, some union groups, congressional Republicans and others that President Obama will soon approve the $7 billion project, after a roughly five year wait. They say the Canada-to-Texas pipeline...

With limited pipeline options to ship oil sands crude out of Canada, Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to move up to 100,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil using a new rail terminal that should be running by 2015, an executive said Thursday. The terminal, to be constructed in Alberta, will cost up to $250 million if it is built to a maximum capacity of 250,000 barrels of oil per day, said David Rosenthal, Exxon Mobil’s vice president of investor relations, during a conference call with analysts. The rail terminal is being developed by Kinder Morgan and Imperial Oil at an...

Billionaire Obama donor Tom Steyer, who is funding and leading the environmentalist campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline, will air an anti-Keystone ad on MSNBC before and after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. The minute-long ad, entitled "Sucker Punch," claims that Canada may not send its tar sand oil through the pipeline to the U.S., and implies it will send the oil to China instead.

There’s a clan of semi-nomadic tradesmen quietly watching for a sign that, somewhere on the horizon, there might be a resolution to the Keystone XL dispute. The Berringer brothers have travelled far, and often, to build pipelines like their dad did. Between the now-retired father and his two burly boys, their total combined experience adds up to about a century. And in all that prodigious pipeline-laying history, they say, not once have they ever witnessed a struggle like the one over Keystone XL. The Berringer boys happen to have a few bucks riding on the outcome. They’d expect their union...

Despite years of acrimonious delay, the Keystone XL pipeline project is increasingly likely to receive the green light from the U.S. government sometime this year. ... In the end, intense pressure from constituencies close to the Obama Administration will force the President to align himself with the project. Here are the top five reasons why the government will finally be compelled to take action on this hot-button issue and why it will probably happen sooner rather than later. 1) The U.S. Midterm elections - Nothing changes policy faster than an election and this year it looks like several members of...

Fixated as we Americans are on Canada’s three most attention-getting exports — polar vortexes, Alberta clippers and the antics of Toronto’s addled mayor — we’ve somewhat overlooked a major feature of Canada’s current relations with the United States: extreme annoyance. Last week, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada’s foreign minister calmly but pointedly complained that the United States owes Canada a response on the Keystone XL pipeline. “We can’t continue in this state of limbo,” he sort of complained, in what for a placid, imperturbable Canadian passes for an explosion of volcanic rage.

Among Washington's most important but rarely covered realities is the daily close coordination among Democratic politicians, executive branch bureaucrats and the left side of the non-profit activism community. Emails obtained recently through a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency by the Energy and Environment Legal Institute exposed a slice of that coordination in the campaign to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The emails show, according to Fox News correspondent John Roberts, "senior policy officials at the EPA working closely with environmental groups in what appears to be an effort to kill the pipeline."...

There are new revelations in the fight to build the Keystone Pipeline. You remember Keystone? It's the project that would transport oil from Canada, south through several states, including Oklahoma, to refineries in Texas. It is guaranteed to create more than a few jobs and provide energy to North America. The Obama administration has fought it at every turn. They claim they are taking a deliberative approach, making sure all the environmental studies have been done, redone, examined, and reexamined. In other words, they have dragged their feet. We now know there is much more to this fight than Obama's...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., joined Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird in urging President Barack Obama on Wednesday to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL Pipeline. "We think the time has come for the administration to make a decision," Baird said during a meeting with reporters in the senator's Washington office. He said Landrieu's support for the project is important, particularly in the Senate Democratic caucus where some are pushing the president to turn down the project. TransCanada said the pipeline would have the capacity to transport 830,000 barrels of oil per day from the western Canadian province of Alberta...

Where crude oil is concerned, Canada waits for no country. It doesn’t matter how wealthy or how friendly that country is -- or whether that country is the United States. With the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline stuck in limbo on the U.S. side, Canada’s Energy Board recently gave a thumbs up to a $6.5 billion pipeline designed to carry 525,000 barrels of oil per day from the oil sands of Alberta to ships on the British Columbia coast. The final destination is most likely Asia. The development has the U.S. oil industry attacking the Obama administration over its drawn-out process....

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said he thinks President Obama will approve the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. In the wake of multiple crude-by-rail train accidents in North Dakota -- leaving railcars ablaze and nearby residents at risk --Hoeven said on "Platts Energy Week" that the U.S. needs more pipelines. The U.S. needs pipelines "not only to improve conditions in terms of rail, but trucks," Hoeven said on Sunday. "With the Keystone pipeline, we'd take 500 trucks a day off our roads in western North Dakota." "So clearly pipelines are a part of the solution. But also we have to do everything...

Energy Policy: An oil-laden train collides with another and bursts into flames in a small American town, proving why pipelines are safer and why environmentalist opposition to a pipeline from Canada is misguided. Casselton, N.D., had a near brush with tragedy after a train of tank cars carrying crude oil derailed, resulting in fiery explosions and a call from the town's mayor for a re-examination of how such fuel is transported across the United States. The railroad runs right through the middle of Casselton, a town of 2,400 people about 25 miles west of Fargo, and Mayor Ed McConnell said...

Here's something to watch in 2014: the collective psyche of the green movement. If President Obama green-lights the Keystone pipeline, the movement will face questions about its tactics and goals at a level unseen since major climate-change legislation collapsed on Capitol Hill in 2010. "If the pipeline is approved, it's a defeat for 350.org, Sierra Club, et al, with no real strategy for what comes next," said Alex Trembath, a policy analyst with the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank whose founders have often criticized movement tactics. Whatever the decision, it will be a defining moment for a movement that...

BREAKING NEWS: A train is derailed west of Casselton, North Dakota. It happened at 35th Street and 154th Avenue Southeast just before 2:20 p.m. Monday. Several area emergency teams are on scene and are setting up an incident command center. A viewer who is about a half mile from the derailment tells Valley News Live she can see large flames. Several train cars are on fire and huge plumes of black smoke can be seen for miles. Emergency crews are urging people to stay inside and a code red alert has been sent out to residents in a two mile...

The Ohio Oil and Gas Association is targeting elementary school students with a pro-industry science program Elementary school classrooms in Ohio are being treated to a super special, game show-like day presentation, brought to them by Radio Disney and funded by the state Oil and Gas Association. All of the activities are aimed at teaching kids about science — the science, that is “behind oil and gas production and their value as natural resources.” The Wooster Daily Record describes how the program, “Rocking in Ohio,” combined science and fun (and industry interests) at the Wayne County fairgrounds this fall: [Radio...

Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan Energy Partners will spend nearly $1 billion to move into the tanker business after agreeing to buy two companies that ship oil between U.S. ports, the companies said Monday. Kinder Morgan said it will buy American Petroleum Tankers and State Class Tankers from affiliates of private equity firms The Blackstone Group and Cerberus Capital Management for $962 million in cash. The tankers, which operate under the Jones Act to transport crude oil between U.S. ports, will expand Kinder Morgan’s ability to move oil throughout the country. This will be a new area of business for the...

Pembina Pipeline Corp. has reached binding commercial agreements to proceed with its $2 billion Phase III Pipeline Expansion. Pembina expects the 540-km expansion to enter service between late 2016 and mid-2017, subject to environmental and regulatory approvals. Phase III will follow and expand certain segments of Pembina’s existing pipeline systems from Taylor, BC, southeast to Edmonton, Alta., with priority placed on areas in need of debottlenecking. The core of the expansion will entail building a 270-km, 24-in. OD pipeline from Fox Creek, Alta., to the Edmonton area. The expansion will have an initial capacity of 320,000 b/d, expandable to more...

... Final say on the 1,177-kilometre pipeline now rests with the federal cabinet, which has 180 days to decide the project’s fate. Gateway, if built, would allow up to 525,000 barrels of oil sands-derived crude to reach new markets in Asia and on the U.S. West Coast. A twinned pipeline would import 193,000 bpd of bitumen-thinning condensate. Enbridge has said the project could be up and running by 2018, although the company is expecting costs to rise. It said during final public hearings the pipeline could cost $7.9-billion, according to the panel.... Reaction from opponents was swift. Greenpeace vowed on...

HOUSTON — TransCanada has begun moving oil into the Keystone XL pipeline’s southern leg, which runs from Oklahoma to the Texas coast, a company spokesman said Monday. “TransCanada is pleased to confirm that at approximately 10:04 am Central Time on Saturday, December 7, 2013, the company began to inject oil into the Gulf Coast Project pipeline as it moves closer to the start of commercial service,” TransCanada spokesman Shawn Howard said in an email. The pipeline owner will need to fill the newly constructed line before it can begin delivering oil to refineries along the Gulf Coast, including those in...