The Keystone XL project is only trying to build a pipeline to Nebraska. It will deliver product to the Midwest as well as the Gulf Coast.
The Gulf Coast Pipeline project from Cushing, OK to Texas, Beaumont area is already up and running.
Posted on 04/21/2014 5:56:01 AM PDT by thackney
The Obama administration on Friday said it was giving eight federal agencies more time to weigh in on the Keystone XL pipeline, a move almost certain to delay a final decision on the controversial project until after the Nov. 4 midterm elections.
That timeline spares President Barack Obama from making a politically difficult decision that would either anger environmentalists or jeopardize some Senate Democrats seeking reelection in red states.
But Friday’s move alienated stakeholders on all sides of the issue, including oil industry allies who accused the White House of playing politics and environmentalists who want Obama to swiftly reject the project they say would exacerbate climate change.
Obama administration officials insisted that prudence — not politics — were at play.
In scrapping a mid-May deadline for the agencies’ comments, the State Department cited “the uncertainty” created by a Nebraska court ruling that ultimately could prompt changes to the pipeline’s existing path. A final ruling by the state’s Supreme Court could be almost a year away.
That route is central to the agencies’ feedback and an environmental study of the project completed earlier this year, stressed a State Department official speaking to reporters on background.
“If there are changes to the route, it could have implications for the environmental, socioeconomic, cultural and other impacts that agencies are seeking to evaluate,” the official said. “We are prudently recognizing that the facts that agencies need to assess and analyze could change, and rather than preemptively asking agencies to give us all those comments now, we’re trying to get a better understanding of what that route might be.”
The State Department said it also would use the extra time to continue reviewing about 2.5 million comments filed by the public earlier this year.
The $5.4 billion pipeline would link Canada’s oil sands to the crude hub in Cushing, Okla., which provides easy access to Gulf Coast refineries. The environmental consequences of developing the heavy crude have been fiercely debated.
‘Shameful’ move
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the delay “shameful.”
“With tens of thousands of American jobs on the line and our allies in Eastern Europe looking for energy leadership from America, it’s clear there is little this administration isn’t willing to sacrifice for politics,” Boehner said in a statement.
And Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, in a tough reelection contest in Louisiana, said the decision “amounts to nothing short of an indefinite delay of the Keystone pipeline” that is “irresponsible, unnecessary and unacceptable.”
“By making it clear that they will not move the process forward until there is a resolution in a lawsuit in Nebraska, the administration is sending a signal that the small minority who oppose the pipeline can tie up the process in court forever,” Landrieu added.
Calls for action
Although the State Department’s decision is a victory for some Nebraska landowners who have battled TransCanada’s plans for installing the pipeline in the state, it rattled some environmentalists pressing the Obama administration to make a swift and decisive ruling against Keystone XL.
Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, and a major leader in the movement against Keystone XL, dryly noted the politics at stake and the timing of the announcement, falling late on the Friday before Easter.
“It’s as if our leaders simply don’t understand that climate change is happening in real time — that it would require strong, fast action to do anything about it,” McKibben said. “While we’re at it, the State Department should also request that physics delay heat-trapping operations for a while, and that the El Nino scheduled for later this spring be pushed back to after the midterms.”
The administration’s move may accelerate efforts in Congress to push legislation forcing the administration to make a final decision on Keystone XL. A similar tactic backfired in 2012, when the Obama administration ultimately ruled against the project and forced TransCanada to reapply with a new pipeline route.
The company first applied for a permit to build the border-crossing pipeline five years ago.
TransCanada Corp. CEO Russ Girling called the delay “inexplicable.”
“Our view remains that the current 90-day national interest determination process that is now underway should not be impacted by the Nebraska lower court ruling since the approved reroute remains valid during appeal,” Girling said in a statement.
Sadly, I believe the Republicans agree.
Boy Cuomo has been doing this for 4 years in New York State.
Upstate New York is in a 5 year recession with people dying because they can’t afford energy prices and boy cuomo refuses to allow cheap energy and jobs in the state.
Pipeline delay gives boost to Obama’s political base
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/20/us-usa-keystone-obama-analysis-idUSBREA3J0CE20140420
The latest delay to a final decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline will reinforce a White House strategy to energize President Barack Obama’s liberal-leaning base before fall elections in which Democrats risk losing control of the U.S. Senate.
Environmentalists, worried about the project’s effect on climate change, have put enormous pressure on the president to reject the pipeline from Canada’s oil sands, staging demonstrations outside the White House and protests in states where he travels.
A decision to approve it now could have prompted that vocal group, which was instrumental in electing Obama in 2008 and 2012, to sit out the November 4 congressional elections.
The State Department’s announcement on Friday that it would give government agencies more time to study the project was seen by strategists from both parties as a move to prevent that and boost Obama in the eyes of his supporters. Support for the president, or lack of it, is generally reflected in mid-term voter turnout.
Approval of the pipeline would also have risked dampening the enthusiasm of wealthy donors such as billionaire investor Tom Steyer, who is spending tens of millions of dollars to boost environmentally-friendly candidates.
“This is rotten eggs for TransCanada and good news on Good Friday for those who oppose Keystone as not being in our nation’s best interest,” Steyer said in a statement.
Obama cannot run for re-election again, but the outcome of the congressional elections, particularly control of the Senate, will determine how much of his agenda can be enacted during his final two years in office.
Tom Steyer’s Keystone Victory
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579513604216547542?mod=rss_opinion_main&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303825604579513604216547542.html%3Fmod%3Drss_opinion_main
The Koch brothers may get the media attention, but the billionaire getting the most political bang for his buck is Tom Steyer. The hedge-fund politico has pledged to raise $100 million to help Democrats keep the Senate, and on Friday he received a major return on his investment when the State Department again delayed its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.
State’s excuse is that it wants to wait on the outcome of a legal challenge in Nebraska, but that’s no reason for the federal government not to declare itself. Earlier this year State’s latest environmental review found no net climate harm from the pipeline, which would take oil from Alberta to refineries on the Gulf Coast. State found that the oil sands will be developed even if the Keystone XL isn’t built.
The real reason for the delay is Democratic politics. Mr. Steyer and the party’s liberal financiers are climate-change absolutists who have made killing Keystone a non-negotiable demand. But the White House doesn’t want to reject the pipeline before November because several Senate Democrats running for re-election claim to favor it. We say “claim” because Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and others can’t even get Majority Leader Harry Reid to give them a vote on the floor.
So Senate Democrats get to have it both ways. They can benefit this year from the riches of Mr. Steyer, who pronounced himself well pleased by the delay. But they can also run in support of the XL pipeline and the thousands of new jobs it would create. Then President Obama can formally nix it next year.
Keystone will never be built as long as Progressives control the White House and the Senate. It goes against their faith.
The Senate doesn’t have the power to hold it back, but the White House does.
I agree. Lil Bam will never OK the Keystone pipeline. He will keep stalling until he goes out of office. If he ever does.
Blocks action would be a more accurate way of putting it. It won’t happen under the Obamanation regime, and it will be too late for the next administration.
“State found that the oil sands will be developed even if the Keystone XL isn’t built.”
This is the key statement. They will continue to dig the sand out of the ground and then transport it somewhere else to process it into the end product. It will still end up producing energy somewhere else in the world. It will just cost more energy to get it to that place.
My question is why don’t the Canadian companies just build or expand another refinery in Canada to refine the product themselves? How many refineries are there in Alberta, BC, SK or MB? I know Federated Coop owns one somewhere north of Edmonton.
However, the Canadians will continue to build their portion in AB and SK. The Obama regime can only stop it from crossing the border. OK and other states can also build their intrastate portions.
If Keystone is not built, the Canadians will lay pipe to Vancouver and ship the crude oil to China. Canada does not need us.
Yes and hopefully they will.
The Keystone XL project is only trying to build a pipeline to Nebraska. It will deliver product to the Midwest as well as the Gulf Coast.
The Gulf Coast Pipeline project from Cushing, OK to Texas, Beaumont area is already up and running.
Stalling works. They have been doing this with timber sales for 20+ years.
For example, say there is a forest fire somewhere on federal lands. There is about a two year window to get in and harvest the timber before it starts to rot and reduces it salvage value. I mean once the tree is dead, pine will get blue stain in it. If it has blue stain, Anderson and Marvin windows will not take it. This reduces its value to the sawmill because the grade recovery is lower. Eventually bugs and worms get into the standing timber because the bark may be gone. This further lowers its value to the mill. Eventually, its not worth the cost to harvest it. Therefore, by delaying the timber sale for a few years, eventually nobody wants it.
This tactic has also caused horrible forest fires out west in CO. There has been a major infestation the last 10 years in BC, AB, WA, OR , MT , WY and CO of the western Pine Beetle. This insect kills the pine tree. There have been millions of acres of dead timber all over the west. Canada and private land owners in the US have been very aggressive in harvesting this timber. On federal US lands many of the timber sales have been blocked in court. So, the dead standing timber was just left to rot. Eventually, summer lightning strikes and forest fires result. It makes the news when houses burn to the ground and people die as a result. The environmentalists are to blame for these deaths and property damage.
” - - - The Obama administration on Friday said it was giving eight federal agencies more time to weigh in on the Keystone XL pipeline, - - - “
The width of a typical, D-Handled, snow shovel is 14.5 inches in North Dakota or Montana, and 37 Centimeters in America’s 57 th State, Canada.
The actual width of the border between the 48 “lower 48” States and the 57 th State is estimated by “settled science” to be less than one millimeter, when measured from Canada, and “not even a smidgen” when lied about in Obamanation.
In the six years that have been required by the Nobel Prize winning “Lead from Behind” Obamanation Administration to make a decision on the one millimeter wide Red Line Border Violation, only eight Federal Bureaus have been amassed to solve how a 14.5 inch wide snow shovel might be best used to create the minimum environmental damage to a one millimeter wide Red Line on the frozen tundra that acts as an impenetrable inequality barrier between two very different ideologies.
On the Democrat Obama side of the ideological Red Line is a pledged oath by Obama to “Barry” the former USA by pledging to “Fundamentally transform the United States of America.”
On the other side of the ideological Red Line is everybody else.
Currently, Democrats and sympathetic doormat Republicans such as Boehner and McConnell have urged Obama to expand the number of Federal Bureaus from a measly 8 to a more equality-based 14.5.
In this way, there would be “shovel-width equality” to the transparently “shovel ready” XL Pipeline project by assigning equal numbers of Federal Bureaus for each inch of a D-Handled snow shovel width.
At last report, Obama and Boehner were meeting to work out a “Grand Bargain” that would NOT be voted on by “wacko bird” extremists from “the fool’s errand” persuasion wing of TEA Party in the US House of Representatives on how best to give all the other “bunch of “ Federal Bureaus a “fair shot” at becoming the one-half Federal Bureau of the US Supreme Court agreed upon mandated 14.5 Federal Bureaus.
Some Women’s groups have already voiced concern that the soon to be designated, one-half Federal Bureau will comprised of equal number of women and men.
Obviously, the gender-neutral will be required to temporarily declare a non-binding statement as to their temporary preference gender of male or female, so that the total number of employees in the half federal Bureau will be an even number.
Equal pay is not expected to be as issue, as all Federal employees are now paid equally, based on gender and not on:
* productivity,
* demonstrated skills or
* competence,
as was commonly done in the bad old days before the doormat Congressional Republican approved rise of Obamanation.
Other concerns voiced by the L.I.E., (Liberal Intelligentsia Elite), about equal distribution of:
* racial backgrounds,
* Gender-based wages from Taxpayer to Federal Permanent Welfare Entitlement Debt ratios,
* employee representation from all of the 57 States,
* and signed confidential pledges to AG Holder’s Department of Gestapo Justice
will be negotiated by Obama’s Labor Relations Board, as readily agreed to by Doormat Republican Boehner.
BTW, Obamanation Official Paid Liar, Jay Carney, is not expected to make any further announcements on the XL Pipeline while negotiations with Doormat Republican Speaker Boehner and President Valerie Jarrett are still ongoing.
Multiple questions from the White House Press Corps went uninsured by a smirking Jay Carney, concerning the rumor that Obama is “forward planning” to Nationalize all US Oil and Gas Pipelines in order to use that new revenue to pay for his failed Obamacare Socialized Health Insurance Tax, commonly referred to as OSHIT.
The President of Indecision.
Nice map!
The destinations in IL are notable. There’s a big refinery in Wood River, and big storage in Patoka, correct?
I wonder where nitwit Durbin is on this one? Still backing Obama, I would guess? IL could certainly use the business: Its economy is “in the tank” - and not in a good way.
They would still have to deliver the product to the US. And the US is already refining more product than we use themselves.
This would only trade the problem of a crude oil pipeline with a refined products pipeline. And the US has a surplus of refined products. We do not have enough input to fill the refineries we already have.
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