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The State Department released a report on Friday that could pave the way toward President Obama’s approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The long-awaited environmental impact statement on the project concludes that approval or denial of the pipeline, which would carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, is unlikely to prompt oil companies to change the rate of their extraction of carbon-heavy tar sands oil, a State Department official said. Either way, the tar sands oil, which produces significantly more planet-warming carbon pollution than standard methods of drilling, is coming out of the...

2014 will likely be another year where Washington and Wall Street come up with solutions that ignore the real problems happening on Main Street. The media is all a twitter with anticipation, waiting for Obama’s State of the Union address, which should be the first salvo for the 2014 mid-term campaigns that will terminate in November. Media types expect a speech that will be heavy on income inequality, minimum wage increases, and unemployment benefits, none of which actually address the real problem that Main Street is having, which is a lack of jobs. A problem that Obama himself created....

I don’t think there could be any better way to put it. Take it away Governor Jindal: “There are no logical reasons to oppose construction of the pipeline other than an irrational liberal ideology that blindly and unscientifically opposes all forms of energy which they themselves do not deem to be sufficiently ‘green’ or ‘renewable’.“ Governor Jindal made these remarks in a speech to the Oilmen’s Business Forum up in the Canadian Rockies. In his speech earlier this week, the republican governor blamed “blind leftwing ideologues” for holding up construction of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. He mentions his left-wing...

... In short, Mr. Obama is about to hammer the American energy industry, and he's doing it for money. The real elephant in the room is the Keystone XL pipeline project intended to bring Canadian oil to American Gulf Coast refineries and the resulting products onto the international market. In fact, the title of the Bloomberg article cited above includes the words "Keystone foes." Mr. Obama has already delayed Keystone, once and a final decision is coming up. While Keystone has received a lot of press attention, there are two interrelated aspects that have not yet come to the surface....

Full title: Obama's Former Communications Director's Firm Does PR For Keystone XL Pipeline, Tar Sands Rail Transport "Keystone XL: Dunn's Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario Dunn has maximized her White House insider access status since leaving the Administration in 2009 and starting SKDK. "Dunn regularly attends closed-door political strategy briefings with top Obama aides; White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving her communications job," the Oct. 2012 New York Times piece explained. "She is now serving as a paid adviser to the Democratic National Committee." Dunn's husband Robert "Bob" Bauer also...

The interminable war on drilling, fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline has taken some bizarre turns. Now it’s getting worse, as opponents grow more desperate, and the moon again grows full. Deep water drilling, 3-D and 4-D seismic (the ability to visualize 3-D over many years), deep horizon horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and other technological marvels have obliterated environmentalist claims that the United States and world are running out of oil and gas – and therefore we need to switch to subsidized, land-hungry, job-killing wind turbines, solar panels and biofuels. Thanks to free enterprise innovation on state and public...

For them or against them, there’s really no disputing the facts.  Pipelines are the safest transportation option for energy goods.  And KeystoneXL is no exception.Critics of the KeystoneXL pipeline obscure the fact that pipelines are, statistically speaking, clearly the safest means of transporting needed resources from Point A to Point B. Pipelines transport more resources and do so with a lower rate of incident than any other method, from truck to rail to barge.Our pipeline infrastructure’s ability to transport the resources that our economy requires is unmatched. Rejection of state-of-the-art projects like KeystoneXL would represent a badly missed opportunity...

Tax could provide cover for approval of oil sands pipelineHello Canada! Are you ready — ready for a new national tax on carbon that will ding pocketbooks across the country? My bet is that a new carbon tax is coming, made almost inevitable by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s full-bore push to secure Washington’s approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.For early clues on the carbon tax/Keystone trade-off, tune in Tuesday night to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. As the president speaks, he will be alert to the chorus of Hollywood stars, environmental activists, editorial writers and industry leaders...

War On Energy: In yet another clean bill of health, the State Department's draft review says the pipeline from Canada will not affect global warming or harm aquifers it crosses. But it will create jobs and economic growth. The U.S. State Department's second Keystone XL supplemental environmental impact statement, which represents the project's fourth environmental review, finds the pipeline would not accelerate global greenhouse gas emissions or significantly harm the natural habitats along its route. This sent the administration's environmentalist base into spasms of hysteria. Greenies had warned that the extraction of crude from Alberta's oil sands would release dangerous...

<p>The Obama administration's chief environmental watchdog, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, is stepping down after a nearly four-year tenure marked by high-profile brawls over global warming pollution, the Keystone XL oil pipeline, new controls on coal-fired plants and several other hot-button issues that affect the nation's economy and people's health.</p>

The president finds himself between an environmentalist rock and a labor union hard place The Keystone XL pipeline is roiling U.S. electoral politics again. TransCanada refiled its application for a permit to build the pipeline with the State Department last week. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has vowed, “I will build that pipeline if I have to do it myself.” In April, the House of Representatives passed a transportation bill that mandates the construction of the Keystone pipeline. The vote was 293 to 127, the majority vote was minus 14 Republicans, but included 69 Democrats. President Barack Obama threatened...

By denying a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline this week, President Barack Obama may succeed in delaying until after November's election the politically difficult decision of which loyal constituency to offend, big labor or environmental activists. What is more certain is that the political maneuvering to deny a permit for the controversial 1,600-mile pipeline from Canadian wells to Texas refineries has an immediate, deleterious effect: It costs America thousands of jobs. The president's decision is contrary to consumer needs, ultimately contributing to higher energy prices, and misses an opportunity to reduce reliance on oil from unfriendly nations.

Let’s face it: Big Oil is used to getting its way. But not any more. President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us. His decision represents a victory of historic proportions for NRDC and hundreds of thousands of committed activists like you who have waged an uphill, years-long fight against one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time. Please thank the President right away for his game-changing decision. But get ready to...

Rick Santorum surged at the last minute to give Mitt Romney a real run for his money in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, is less green than his rival, and decidedly nuttier when it comes to climate change. But let's not split hairs here. Both men will staunchly defend fossil fuels, and neither is likely to do much of anything to fight global warming. Mitt Romney has expressed qualified concern about climate change over the years, and then vacillated about how much of it is human-caused and whether we should try to do anything about it. No wobbling of that sort from...

The payroll-tax-cut debate is not really about the payroll tax, which is a very weak-kneed economic stimulant and a lackluster job creator because of its temporary nature. Without permanent incentives at lower tax rates, these rebates don’t do anything for growth and jobs. Instead, the key to understanding the payroll-tax debate is to grasp Pres. Barack Obama’s leftist vision of taxing successful earners (the millionaire surtax) and his obsession with clean energy at the expense of fossil fuels. These are ideological positions. They support the Obama vision of class warfare and his attachment to radical environmentalism. And the key to...

Fiscal Policy: President Obama tried to get Republicans to oppose a payroll tax extension, but Senate Democrats are the ones now fighting it. When liberals propose tax cuts, it's almost never on the level. When a beleaguered President Obama appeared before Congress in September to propose yet another massive stimulus spending program, including a payroll tax-cut extension paired with a "millionaire surtax," it was viewed as a shrewd political move Republicans were sure to oppose. So, why are his Senate Democrats now determined to kill payroll tax-cut legislation? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been falling all over himself this...

Excerpt: Environmentalist rhetoric has become especially negative-sounding in the last few years as gas prices have generally increased and periodically spiked, new and restricting regulations have gone into effect, more expensive and less desirable “green” technologies have been pushed or mandated, and “green jobs” have been endlessly touted. News of Solyndra and other wasteful and abusive spending (what a shocker!) of “stimulus” dollars have provided additionally legitimate reasons for scorn of the whole environmentalism-gone-wild thing. The TransCanada project seems a tailor-made solution; it is good old-fashioned oil, evoking images of Jed Clampett (black oil, Texas Tea). It is definitely not...

One of the holiest words in the Democratic economic lexicon is “infrastructure.” Yet the proposed Keystone XL pipeline represents a big, honking $7 billion, 1,700-mile-long infrastructure project that the Obama administration is delaying and the environmentalists are opposing. If Pres. Barack Obama thinks the country lacks its former economic verve, he need look no farther than the Keystone XL fiasco for a demonstration of one reason why. Keystone XL meets every possible standard. President Obama wants “shovel ready” jobs. The materials to build the pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast are waiting to go. The president rightly notes...

Next week will begin public meetings regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline, which will be a pipeline connecting Alberta, Canada with Gulf Coast refineries.As I’m sure you can expect, the freaks are going to come out of the woodworks.  The left is already giving them their talking points:From the Climate Change® appeals - While protecting the climate will ultimately require legislation and treaties, in the meantime it is essential to prevent the use of “extreme energy” fuels like the Alberta tar sands oil that will rapidly make climate change far worse. To enviro-guilting™  - Our water, our health, our environment and the...

Fort McMurray, Alberta—Standing on the edge of the immense and spectacular pit of an oil sands mine for the first time last week, I was surprised by a sense of exhilaration. Later, seven stories up, equipped with earplugs, and clad in bright blue overalls, I marveled at the cascades of black bitumen froth bubbling over the sides of a separation cell like a giant witch’s cauldron. The scale of the enterprise and the sheer ingenuity involved in wresting value and sustenance from the hands of a stingy Mother Nature provoked in me a feeling close to glory. Yet as I...