Free Republic

OTTAWA--Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has told U.S. President Barack Obama that he's ready to work on joint plan between the two countries to reduce carbon emissions in the energy sector in an effort to secure approval of the Keystone XL pipeline project, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Friday. The CBC, citing unnamed sources, said Mr. Harper wrote to Mr. Obama in late August, signaling he is ready to accept carbon-reduction targets proposed by the U.S. and prepared to work with the White House to address concerns raised about Keystone and its impact on greenhouse-gas emissions. A spokesman for Mr....

Why has the little nation of Qatar spent 3 billion dollars to support the rebels in Syria? Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe. Why is Saudi Arabia spending huge amounts of money to help the rebels and why has Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan been...

The religion of violence has struck again and these are the savages that Barack Obama, John Kerry, and now John Boehner (no real surprise there) are wanting us to support. Alalam is now reporting that the Obama backed and supported al-Qaeda Syrian rebels forced 24 civilians off a bus traveling from Tarus to Ras al-Ain in the northeast of Syria and beheaded them all, including a mother and her baby. Alalam reports: Al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria have beheaded all 24 Syrian passengers traveling from Tartus to Ras al-Ain in northeast of Syria, among them a mother and a 40-days...

Nothing brings the most useless people in society together like an environmental protest. I thought the unwashed groups of green cultists and fading celebs opposing the Keystone XL pipeline were brainless until we were exposed to the ‘Line 9’ protesters. There isn’t one neuron firing in the entire crowd. Not one.

Allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to move forward would cut into the revenue of rail freight operators that transport oil and other liquids, but there would still be plenty of growth opportunities for cost-conscious operators, BNSF Railway CEO Matthew Rose said Wednesday. Rose told a lunch gathering at the annual Summer North America Prospect Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston that pipelines present increasing competition to his company and his peers. “We know that rail on the surface is without a doubt the most efficient and lowest price, but we know that when we compete with...

It’s crunch time in the fight over constructing the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline. Both sides believe a decision by President Obama could come by the end of the year, making the next few months critical for lobbying and messaging efforts. Opponents plan a burst of demonstrations and other events across the country to rally environmental pressure on Obama to reject the Alberta-to-the-Gulf-Coast pipeline. Supporters are also campaigning, with the American Petroleum Institute (API) promoting its message that Keystone’s construction will create jobs, with rallies in more than a dozen “priority states” in the coming months, API spokeswoman Sabrina Fang...

Keystone XL would not add to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study published Thursday by an independent research group that echoed the findings of government-backed reports. The study found that the addition of the new pipeline connecting Canadian oil sands fields with the U.S. Gulf Coast wouldn’t make a substantial difference in emissions because U.S. refineries would get similar crude from Venezuela or elsewhere. Production, processing and transportation of Venezuelan heavy crude results in about the same greenhouse gas emissions as oil sands crude, according to the study from energy-focused information and research firm IHS CERA. A prior report...

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday contradicted President Barack Obama’s dismissal of the job-creation potential of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline, saying the project is important both for jobs and for energy security. His comments follow TransCanada Corporation’s announcement that as an alternative, the company is moving forward with the $12 billion Energy East Pipeline project, which would send over a million barrels per day of oil across Canada east to New Brunswick, where a multi-billion deep-water port would be constructed. Given that the U.S. State Department confirmed America would have gained tens of thousands of permanent high paying...

Sarah Palin @SarahPalinUSA Did Bob Beckel just defend Obama's anti-Keystone stance by claiming the Alaska pipeline employs "about 100 people"? Seriously?! -snip Beckel: “Do you know how many permanent jobs there are on the Alaska pipeline? About a hundred.” And with that, school was in session:

When it comes to the facts and how they are portrayed in Washington, it is a subjective thing. On any given issue, the facts are manipulated so they will appear to support a particular argument. We may want to deny it, but both sides of the political spectrum do this. So, when President Obama doubled down against the Keystone Pipeline in Chattanooga, TN yesterday, it was no surprise that he chose his own facts to support his argument that the pipeline was not a jobs plan. Hat tip to Texas Fred. Fox News - President Obama doubled down Tuesday on...

So… is that kind of like how aggressively pushing for federal, i.e. taxpayer “investment” in public-sector infrastructure projects but actively blocking private-sector ones is “not a jobs plan”? Or, maybe it’s more along the basic lines of how more Keynesian stimulus, deficit spending, increased regulation, and top-down market interference is “not a jobs plan”? Yeah, I think that’s the one. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO If they’ve got a better plan to bring back more manufacturing jobs here to Tennessee and around the country, then let them know — let me know. I want to hear them. If they’ve...

President Obama doubled down Tuesday on his claim that the Keystone XL oil pipeline would create just a handful of jobs, despite being hammered by Republicans and fact-checkers alike for the claim. The president addressed Keystone during a speech in Chattanooga, Tenn., as he challenged Republicans to come up with new jobs proposals. "They keep on talking about this -- an oil pipeline coming down from Canada that's estimated to create about 50 permanent jobs. That's not a jobs plan," Obama said.

President Barack Obama’s latest critique of the Keystone XL oil pipeline still leaves a path for approving the project — but its supporters may need to make concessions to blunt its impact on the climate, analysts said Monday. Obama’s remarks to The New York Times echoed some of the most potent criticisms offered by Keystone’s opponents, scoffing at GOP claims about job creation and warning that the pipeline might even raise gasoline prices. He also said Canada “could potentially be doing more” to counteract the greenhouse gas emissions being unleashed from Alberta’s oil sands, the major reason for climate activists’...

U.S. President Barack Obama has called into question the number of jobs that would be provided from the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in a New York Times interview over the weekend. Republicans have frequently stated that there would be a large number of jobs created if the pipeline is approved for construction, Obama said, adding that he disputes their premise. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator,” Obama said in the interview. “There is no evidence that that’s true. The most realistic estimates are this might maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the...

BEIJING — China has switched on a pipeline bringing natural gas from Myanmar, a state company said Monday, in a project that has raised concerns in Myanmar's nascent civil society about whether its giant neighbor's resource grabs will benefit local people. The 793-kilometer (493-mile) pipeline connects the Bay of Bengal with southwest China's Yunnan province and is expected to transfer 12 billion cubic meters of natural gas to China annually, according to a news release on the website of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). A parallel 771-kilometer (479-mile) pipeline that will carry Middle East oil — shipped via the Indian...

President Obama said the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline would not be a major job creator and could increase gasoline prices, but added that the White House decision will rest on climate change. “Republicans have said that this would be a big jobs generator. There is no evidence that that’s true,” Obama said in a New York Times interview published Saturday. Obama, in some of his most extensive remarks ever on the pipeline, also said Canada could “potentially be doing more” to curb emissions from the oil sands. His comments follow his closely watched late June pledge that Keystone...

A pipeline explosion Sunday that injured seven people and sent flames and smoke shooting hundreds of feet into the air in central Mexico was caused by illegal tapping, Mexico’s state-owned oil company said. The pre-dawn explosion in a farm field injured four police officers and three firefighters among those called to the scene by a report of an oil leak, the state prosecutor’s office said. Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, issued a statement on its Twitter account blaming the blast on an attempt to steal oil with an illicit tap. The supply of crude oil through the pipeline was immediately suspended,...

...A fiery and fatal train derailment earlier this month in Quebec, near the Maine border, highlighted the danger of moving oil by rail. But while the practice could be made safer, it won't be stopped in its tracks. This year, more trains carrying crude will chug across North America than ever before — nearly 1,400 carloads a day. In 2009, there were just 31 carloads a day.... Even safety experts worried about the dangers of shipping oil by rail acknowledge that the safety record of railroads is good — and improving. The scope of the Lac-Megantic disaster, which is still...

As politicians, industry advocates and environmental activists continue to spar over whether the Keystone XL oil pipeline should be given the go-ahead, a new poll suggests a strong majority of Americans are in favour of the project. Sixty-seven percent of Americans surveyed in a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll back construction of the proposed pipeline, which would ship crude from the Canadian oil sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast in Texas.

While the Obama administration mulls whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Americans are already decided. They support the project by a wide margin, prioritizing potential economic benefits over possible environmental consequences.The latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds that more than two-thirds of respondents, 67 percent, support building the pipeline to carry Canadian oil to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast; that includes 56 percent of Democrats. Less than a quarter of Americans, 24 percent, oppose the project, the poll shows.The State Department is evaluating the proposal, and President Obama said last month that the pipeline should...