Posted on 11/14/2011 4:31:24 PM PST by Ron C.
Edited on 11/14/2011 4:36:08 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
LINCOLN, Neb. Days after the Obama administration threatened to delay approval of a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico -- angering unions while appeasing environmentalists -- the company seeking to build the pipeline says it's willing to reroute the project to get it back on track.
TransCanada said Monday evening it will move the planned pipeline out of the environmentally sensitive Sandhills area of Nebraska, and is confident the project will still win approval.
I think the logic noted in post 39 explains a lot.
I understand the pressures involved. The last project I did had an opportunity cost of $30,000 per day of pure profit per line, with 12 lines available. It was a company with only $100 million in gross sales, so you can only imagine what that kind of profit might have meant to them.
I was the only engineer on the job with but one draftsman.
The lack of a free market in managing externalities means that the market for options in pipeline rights of way with the owners touting their respective environmental advantages does not exist. Socialism has wrecked such markets in land use planning because the government "owns" the assets at risk by dint of its regulatory powers.
Question is — the argument says if we don’t approve the pipeline the oil will go to China. How can we be sure it wont cross our country and end up in foreign ports anyway, like the timber from the forests of the northwest — cut down and shipped out. In some cases we bought back. A lot of money exchanging hands in those deals.
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