Free Republic

Only intense lobbying by the president himself ensured the latest congressional bid to approve the Keystone XL pipeline was defeated in the U.S. Senate last week. But if Keystone's opponents won the latest skirmish, it appears they are losing the war. The vote revealed deep divisions among Senate Democrats as well as the waning influence of environmentalists and the growing power of the oil and gas lobby in Congress. It seems only a matter of time before the controversial northern section of Keystone, which goes from Canada to Cushing, Oklahoma, is given the go-ahead. It will probably happen once the...

President Obama really worked the phones before this vote with 11 Democrats defecting to join all the Republicans(2 being absent)and Conservatives need to continue to put the pressure on the Democrats and President.

The Keystone XL pipeline's demise tosses another shovel full of dirt onto the lid of this country's coffin. Keystone's termination was not just a kickback to the urban dwelling, loony-left environmental voters, though that was a nice bonus. The demise was also not just a payoff to Warren Buffet's rail companies that currently ferry unrefined North Dakota oil, though that too was an added benefit. No, killing Keystone XL forwards two radical anti-American agendas deeply coveted by the hard-leftists occupying the White House. First, for some context, let's revisit the underlying Marxist dogma that drives the decision-making process of the...

The White House on Thursday argued that President Obama's lobbying against the Keystone XL pipeline in the Senate was an effort to ensure the project "receives the important assessment it deserves." Here is the full statement from White House spokesman Clark Stevens: Once again Republicans are trying to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed, and despite the claims that this would somehow solve the pain families are feeling at the pump today, according to the company it would take years before it transported a drop of oil. The fact is that earlier this...

Via PoliticoPresident Barack Obama is intervening in a Senate fight over the Keystone XL oil pipeline and personally lobbying Democrats to reject an amendment calling for its construction, according to several sources familiar with the talks.The White House lobbying effort, including phone calls from the president to Democrats, signals that the vote could be close when it heads to the floor Thursday. ..

President Obama is digging in on the Keystone XL pipeline. He is "personally lobbying Democrats to reject an amendment calling for its construction," Politico reports. The White House lobbying effort, including phone calls from the president to Democrats, signals that the vote could be close when it heads to the floor Thursday. The president is trying to defeat an amendment that would give election-year fodder to his Republican critics who have accused him of blocking a job-creating energy project at a time of high gas prices. The amendment, proposed by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), states that Obama would have no...

Former President Bill Clinton said the federal government should embrace the Keystone XL pipeline that the Obama administration rejected last month. Clinton also said that one of the “best things” about being out of office is “you can say whatever the heck you want.” “One of the most amazing things to me about this Keystone pipeline deal is that they ever filed that route in the first place since they could’ve gone around the Nebraska Sandhills and avoided most of the danger, no matter how imagined, to the Ogallala with a different route, which I presume we’ll get now, because...

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney explains how the President's killing of the Keystone Pipeline was actually the Republican's fault. They were playing politics, which the President doesn't do. [quote] "In terms of Keystone, as you all know, the history here is pretty clear. And the fact is because Republicans decided to play political with Keystone, their action essentially forced the administration to deny the permit process because they insisted on a time frame in which it was impossible to completely approve the pipeline"... [end quote] Alas, the President who is unbound by public opinion, the Constitution, congressional opposition, press scrutiny, or...

Barack Obama's re-election campaign hired Carrie Doyle, a high powered lobbyist for Colorado's most outspoken anti-drilling environmental organization, to run his campaign in the nation's key electoral battleground: Colorado. ... Among the green groups that Doyle lobbied for -- Colorado Conservation Voters, the Colorado chapter of the League of Conservation Voters. That would be the same League of Conservation Voters who most recently won national stardom for pressuring the Obama Administration to reject the Keystone Pipeline. Wondering whether Obama was going to move to the middle to shore up Colorado's notoriously independent voters? Wondering whether Obama's rejection of the Keystone...

White House press secretary Jay Carney says Republicans "forced" President Obama to deny the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Later in his press briefing, Carney says Obama didn't turn down the pipeline. "In terms of Keystone, as you all know, the history here is pretty clear. And the fact is because Republicans decided to play political with Keystone, their action essentially forced the administration to deny the permit process because they insisted on a time frame in which it was impossible to completely approve the pipeline," Carney said when asked about the pipeline by ABC News' Jake Tapper. Later...

The fun begins at 4:30 of the clip. Carney’s playing a game here by stressing the weak distinction between canceling the pipeline project outright and “merely” postponing a decision on it until after the election so that environmentalists will keep donating to the Unicorn Prince. The State Department announced the postponement back in November — with the approval of Obama’s pals in the green lobby. Remember? “This is not a political decision,” [a State Department] said, adding that when it came to White House involvement, “there was no effort to influence our decision.”Once the State Department broached the idea of...

About three weeks ago, Barack Obama nixed the Keystone XL pipeline that would have transported 900,000 barrels of oil per day from the Canadian tar sands to the gulf coast region of the U.S.  The pipeline project would also create 20,000 direct jobs and potentially hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs according to economic analysis.   Spurned by Obama's rejection, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that if Canada's next door neighbor and close ally didn't want Canada's oil, then he'd pursue other markets to "diversify" the market for Canada's natural resources.  It didn't take him long. Harper was in Beijing...

Two other lopsided results in the latest Fox News poll: By a 67-25 percent margin, voters support building the Keystone XL pipeline. That includes: 87 percent of Republicans, 69 percent of independents and 50 percent of Democrats say build it.Fox News PollShould Keystone XL Pipeline Be Built?Yes      67%No       25% February 6-9, 2012 Registered Voters ± 3%–The poll asked about the Obama administration requiring all employer health plans to provide birth control coverage as part of preventative services for women. (This includes Catholic and other religious-affiliated hospitals and universities that oppose doing so because it violates their religious rights.) A majority...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Thursday accused President Barack Obama of actively seeking ways to allow Iran to gain a nuclear weapon and suggested that the administration had betrayed Israel by publicly disclosing what may be a plan to attack the Muslim nation. Santorum drew connections between the administration's opposition to the Keystone pipeline project, which would bring oil from Canada to U.S. refineries, and American dependency on foreign oil and U.S.-Israel relations. "We're throwing Israel under the bus because we know we're going to be dependent upon OPEC," Santorum said during a speech in...

Oops. Mitt Romney made a minor slip-up at a campaign event here Wednesday afternoon when he mixed up the name of a pipeline project favored by Republicans and the name of the Obama abminsitration-backed solar firm that the GOP argues has become symbolic of the White House’s failed policies.

President Obama “is focused like a laser on putting people back to work,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) assured us last fall – echoing repeated statements by President Obama and Administration officials who “can’t wait” for Congress or others to take action and create jobs. The jobs thing didn’t last long, however. The President soon vetoed TransCanada’s application for permits to build the Keystone XL pipeline. Approving them “would not be in the national interest,” he declared. It is hard for most Americans to understand how it is contrary to the national interest to create 20,000 construction and manufacturing jobs,...

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/billionaire-boondoggle/1428210002001

The keystone pipeline is actually just one of several oil sands pipelines targeted by the Rockefeller Brother’s Fund in a coordinated, 4-year, $28 million dollar campaign. Ezra Levant calls it industrial sabotage and, based on their own Power Point, that certainly seems an apt description: http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/fine-with-foreign-funds/1426148700001 For all their bluster about money in politics, you won’t hear anything about this from congressional Democrats or their allies on MSNBC. How about it Rachel Maddow? Will you do a segment on keeping the Rockefeller Fund out of American and Canadian energy policy? As it happens, Ezra Levant made this exact point in...

Details of a large non-profit’s plans to combat the Keystone XL pipeline have surfaced, and offer some insight into the strategies and tactics of groups looking to combat the use of fossil fuels. Canadian news channel Sun News uncovered of a PowerPoint presentation from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund detailing its work with other groups to derail the Keystone XL pipeline and other similar projects it deemed parts of “a globally significant threat.” The presentation, written in 2008, describes the allocation of $7 million to environmental non-profits for tactics that include the use of the legislative and legal systems to delay...

You know politicians are serious when they move from campaigning to governing. Something like that may be happening on the Republican campaign trail -- but, unfortunately, not at the Obama White House. Campaigning clearly carried the day for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina, where he beat Mitt Romney by a 40 percent to 28 percent margin. It's generally agreed that Gingrich clinched the race when he reacted angrily to questions by Fox News's Juan Williams and CNN's John King. Both times Gingrich got standing ovations. But not for how he'd govern. His platform can be summed up in a bumper...