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The head of a major labor union is lambasting President Obama over the latest delay on the Keystone XL pipeline, six years after it was initially proposed. Terry O’Sullivan, leader of the Laborers’ International Union which represents a half-million construction workers, claimed the administration's announcement on Good Friday that it was putting off a decision, possibly until after the midterms, had politics written all over it. In a Washington Post opinion piece, he suggested that “the Obama administration grow a set of antlers or take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.” O’Sullivan has turned to various media outlets...

1) What do you make of the extension of the comment period for federal agencies to Keystone XL? President Obama said he would take his time to make a considered decision whether or not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and that appears to be exactly what he's doing. 2) The State Department wrote in a recent report that even if the pipeline isn’t built, the oil will still be exported by other means. So, is protesting the pipeline fruitless? Not at all. 3) For many, the debate on Keystone comes down to jobs. The presence of a pipeline will...

Russia is changing its energy export policy vector as strong demand for hydrocarbons in both in China and in India continues to grow. The recent unease in both the U.S. and Europe over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s March 17 annexation of Crimea has only added to Moscow’s efforts to diversify its markets beyond Europe. Now Russia and India are planning to construct a $30 billion oil pipeline through China’s restive Xinjiang province. If successful, the pipeline will be the most expensive in the world. The groundwork for the project was laid on October 21, 2013, during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan...

The psychiatric world defines "projection" as the act of denying unpleasant qualities in yourself, while attributing them to others. Consider liberal billionaire Tom Steyer's riff this week about the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers. Mr. Steyer took exception in a C-SPAN interview to comparisons between his big-dollar funding of Democrats with the Koch brothers' big-dollar funding of Republicans. The Kochs' priorities "line up perfectly with their pocketbooks—and that's not true for us," said Mr. Steyer, who is fighting against the Keystone XL pipeline. Moreover, he insisted, his politicking is "completely open," whereas the Kochs have "not been huge embracers of transparency."...

According to experts cited by The New York Times, President Barack Obama's eventual decision on the Keystone XL pipeline -- last week, the administration once again postponed a decision -- "will have a marginal impact on global warming emissions." The global economy releases lots of greenhouse gas -- 32.6 billion metric tons of carbon in 2011. The Keystone XL pipeline would add 18.7 million metric tons. In the global greenhouse gas picture, it won't make a dent. To the working men and women of America, however, the project represents "a lifeline to good jobs and energy security," according to Terry...

On Good Friday, President Obama made a bad call. The State Department announced that it would delay its decision on the Keystone XL pipeline until after the Nebraska Supreme Court rules in a case involving the route. The administration insists the decision to punt has nothing to do with politics. Pretty much everyone else thinks otherwise. Obama, who is rarely reluctant to act unilaterally when it benefits him politically, and who regularly brags about his red-tape cutting, is paralyzed by perhaps the only big shovel-ready jobs project he's been presented with. He welcomes the Keystone red tape because he's trapped...

Drivers in the U.S. are facing rising gasoline prices ahead of summer-vacation season, just as refiners here are shipping more gas to other countries. A new pipeline, built to release a glut of crude oil that was stuck in the middle of the country, is now feeding oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast that churn out gasoline and diesel. While these fuels still make their way to the Southeast and the East Coast, growing amounts are being sold to Mexico, the Netherlands, Brazil and other countries. The push into these markets has been spurred by the U.S. oil boom....

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Vigenin has pledged that Bulgaria will do everything within its power to implement the South Stream project. “Bulgaria and some other EU member states should not be the hostages of Ukraine’s instability,” Vigenin said in an exclusive interview with ITAR-TASS. “Therefore, the interests of European citizens, including Bulgarians, should come first. We will do everything within our power to have the South Stream project implemented,” Vigenin stressed.

Whenever businesses and bureaucrats don’t have the guts to stand behind a decision they’ve made, they release the news late on a Friday. In the case of the Obama administration’s move to delay indefinitely a decision to approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline, it speaks volumes that the announcement was made not just on any Friday, but on the convergence of Good Friday and Passover. Got to be just coincidence, right? The cover story is that another delay in the five-year Keystone saga couldn’t be avoided because of unresolved legal issues over land seizures in Nebraska. Mmm-hmmm. In what...

US Permian Basin pipeline capacity is slated to soon expand by about 500,000 b/d, matching growing production with takeaway capacity. But the balancing act may be short-lived, as horizontal drilling is expected to unlock more oil in the legacy field. Producers are applying shale drilling techniques learned in the North Dakota Bakken and South Texas Eagle Ford to the Permian, and some longterm forecasts for the West Texas play have been revised northward in the past year. The Permian Basin lies under West Texas and southeast New Mexico and historically produces light sweet West Texas Intermediate crude and medium sour...

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 announcement made it clear that Canadian pipeline backers will not get the answer they wanted in time for the summer construction season, pushing completion of the project until 2015 — at best. The State Department said it needs more time to prepare its recommendation to the president because the pipeline route is mired in uncertainty. A legal dispute is underway in Nebraska over the route and it is unlikely to be resolved before next year.... Speculation had been rampant about whether the Obama administration might try to punt the politically sensitive decision until after this year’s midterms. That’s because...

The Obama administration has extended a key review period for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Fox News has learned, potentially pushing off a decision until after the midterm elections.

The man who oversaw an energy crisis has come out strongly against the Keystone XL pipeline. In a letter with other Nobel laureates, former President Jimmy Carter urged President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the pipeline, claiming that allowing the project to move forward would worsen climate change.

Russia is rolling out two major projects—a gas pipeline and a Crimea deep water port—with China, as EU countries and the US weigh options on economic sanctions. Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told EUobserver on Wednesday (16 April) that work on the “Power of Siberia” pipeline and the Chinese construction of a 25-meter-deep port in Crimea are proceeding as normal despite the Ukraine crisis. Describing the pipeline as a “mega-project”, he said it will pump 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year from the Kovykta and Tchayandinskoe gas fields to Russia’s far east, with a branch...

Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats, including five up for re-election this year, are pressing President Barack Obama to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, and they say they want a decision by the end of next month. Most Republicans support the pipeline, but the 11 Democrats who wrote a letter to Mr. Obama urging him to approve the project deliberately made it a one party-effort. While a set of bipartisan signatures can be a powerful thing in the art of Washington letter-writing, these lawmakers clearly want to accentuate the pressure Mr. Obama faces from his own party on this issue. “It’s...

If, as he hinted not too long ago, President Obama really is planning on approving the Keystone XL pipeline before this November’s elections, he apparently has yet to let Senate Democrats in on that little secret (or, maybe he has, and they’re taking the opportunity to starkly differentiate themselves from him and his politically toxic policies regardless), but either way: For all of the raging against supposed Congressional obstructionism and gridlock that the White House does, Keystone XL is so beyond bipartisan it’s just stupid. Nearly a dozen Senate Democrats, including five up for re-election this year, are pressing President...

A natural gas pipeline stretching 435 miles across Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula is just one piece of General Electric’s multibillion-dollar bid to shore up energy infrastructure in North America, where an oil and gas boom has drawn a wave of investments to new pipelines. GE’s energy investing arm has more than $3 billion tied up in 43,500 miles of pipeline, the largest U.S. liquefied natural gas export facility and other energy transportation and storage ventures. But it has started to shift its attention to early-stage ventures as U.S. and Canadian pipeline operators collect billions for new projects that link remote shale...

Like a blockbuster movie that never quite arrives, President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL oil pipeline has been “coming soon” for years. He has been weighing whether the project should be built since he first entered the Oval Office, and rationalizations for further delay are thin on the ground. After a February White House meeting between Obama and a number of governors, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) told reporters that Obama had said he expected to make a call “in a couple of months.” But the White House has not even acknowledged that such a suggestion was made, let...

Russian President Vladimir Putin was all smiles as he signed the annexation treaty between Crimea and the Russian Federation on March 18th that will allow the Crimea to be absorbed by Russia. In a speech to the Russian Duma, Putin congratulated the 82% of Crimea citizens voting by a 96% majority to secede from the Ukraine. But Putin’s Cheshire-Cat smile isn’t just about welcoming two million more countrymen. The day before, Crimea’s parliament nationalized Chornomornaftohaz and Ukrtransgaz, the two energy companies that control substantial offshore oil and gas reserves. Putin intends for Russia to make a profit on acquiring and...