Free Republic

Labor unions are beseeching senators to pass legislation that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline by circumventing a government review process that threatens to stretch into 2015. In a letter to senators today, five unions, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute say the bill is essential to free the pipeline from “political limbo.” “After nearly six years of countless polls and five exhaustive federal reviews stating the pipeline is safe to build and will create thousands of jobs, we have unfortunately seen political rhetoric and gamesmanship take precedence over policy and leadership,” the groups say. The...

He owes it all to the Keystone Kops of the leisure class. For the past decade the Democrats have managed to defy gravity by bolting together an unlikely coalition of the richest and poorest Americans. It’s no secret. Ever since President Bush’s re-election in 2004, the pattern has been clear. People making above $100,000 and below $40,000 vote Democratic. The people in the middle vote Republican. But now that top-bottom coalition is about to come apart, or lose its majority status at least. And the issue will be one that may loom larger than the debacle of Obamacare — the...

Rep. Jared Polis’s decision to sponsor a barrelful of anti-fracking initiatives is threatening to make a tough election year even rougher for Colorado Democrats, starting with Sen. Mark Udall. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is attempting to broker a deal that would persuade Polis to pull his proposed anti-fracking initiatives, but if the governor can’t get it done, every Democratic candidate will face pressure to take a stand this year on an issue that has badly divided the state party. That starts with the Democrat Udall, who’s already under fire for refusing to stake out a position on whether to construct...

BERLIN--A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin praised German diplomacy on Thursday while railing against the U.S. in the latest effort by Moscow to highlight western divisions over the Ukraine crisis. Vladimir Yakunin, president of the Russian Railways and one of the Russian officials on the U.S. sanctions list, lavished praise on Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, who visited Ukraine this week to endorse the government's planned dialogue with its critics at home. "I know Mr. Steinmeier a little bit myself. I know he is very balanced and a very objective politician," Mr. Yakunin told reporters. "To my mind,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has informed multiple European states that Moscow will not supply gas to Europe through Ukraine as of June 1 if Kiev does not pay its bills, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Thursday. Fico, speaking to reporters after meeting NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said the most pressing threat facing Slovakia was the question of deliveries from Russia that pass through Ukraine. "Today, multiple member states including Slovakia were informed by President Putin that as of June 1, if Ukraine does not pay for supplied gas, it will not be supplied to the European...

Hillary Rodham Clinton brings a quarter-century of public service to her potential presidential campaign, but it’s her most recent job as secretary of state for President Obama — overseeing relations with Russia, handling the terrorist attack in Benghazi and negotiating over the war on terrorism — that could come back to haunt her. Many of Mr. Obama’s current political problems also could affect Mrs. Clinton, including the handling of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the decision not to slap the terrorist label on Boko Haram, a group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls last month. Even the Keystone XL...

The Keystone XL Pipeline got another nail in its coffin Monday, in the form of a Senate energy vote that excluded the pipeline issue. But Keystone was already near death thanks to the Obama's administration's recent decision to ignore the evidence of a definitive government study—and instead keep listening to environmentalists' dubious claims. The upshot will be more political fires in Washington caused by train derailments in the absence of a pipeline to transport oil more safely. After the derailment in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, approximately 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil burned or spilled into the James...

A bipartisan Senate effort to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline collapsed Monday making it unlikely a politically potent vote on the project will take place before November’s midterm election. A vote on Keystone was tied to the fate of an unrelated energy efficiency bill that has support in both parties. But that measure failed to get the 60 votes it needed to move forward after getting bogged down in partisan fighting over whether GOP amendments would be allowed.

The B.C. City of Burnaby is threatening to withhold emergency services in the event of an oil spill, in the latest sign of municipal furor over Kinder Morgan Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The Vancouver suburb is home to Kinder Morgan’s Westridge dock, making it the staging ground for a potential three-fold increase in oil sales to markets in Asia and along the U.S. West Coast. The Houston-based company’s Canadian unit has applied to nearly triple capacity on the Pacific-bound pipeline to 890,000 barrels a day, potentially opening vast new markets and raising prices for Alberta’s landlocked oil. Municipalities have...

The Keystone XL pipeline may be stalled, but it's pumping a steady flow of cash into Washington — where inertia is a multibillion-dollar industry. The pipeline debate has become a money-making machine for lobbyists, advertisers, NGOs and political fundraisers in the U.S. capital, where tens of millions of dollars are being spent on the issue. The spending deluge will continue indefinitely, thanks to the two latest non-developments: the Obama administration has delayed a decision on the pipeline, and a congressional effort to speed up the process appears to have collapsed this week. The Washington insider news outlet, Politico, described the...

Canadian oil prices are now just $18 below the price of U.S. crude thanks to a series of new U.S. pipelines, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning. This means the Keystone XL Pipeline is already obsolete. "Higher oil prices in Canada ... are a sign that oil-sands crude is finding its way to the U.S. even without the approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline," Journal reporters Nicole Friedman and Chester Dawson said. "The resurgence in Canadian oil prices and energy stocks is further confirmation that the transportation problems that have prevented both Canada and the U.S. from enjoying...

Mark Udall, D-Colo., is facing calls on both sides to clarify his position on the Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline wouldn't run through Colorado, but it's about to take center stage in the state's politics. The Senate is near certain to vote this week on legislation that would approve the oil-sands pipeline, and that's leaving Sen. Mark Udall—a Democrat facing a tough reelection challenge—with an unenviable choice to make. If Udall votes yes, he'll anger a liberal base that has put blocking the pipeline at the head of its environmental charge. But if he votes no, his opponent...

Don't trouble yourself trying to figure out whether President Obama is more political than ideological. He's an expert at straddling both and getting his way without compromise. Analysts have long debated whether partisan Obama would prevail over ideological Obama in his decision to approve or reject the Keystone XL pipeline, but in the end, it may be a false choice, as both could win under the overarching dominance of Saul Alinsky-Obama. Keystone XL is intended to carry crude oil from Alberta to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists have long opposed construction of the pipeline, arguing it would do...

* Pipeline meets about a third of Ukraine diesel demand * Hungary received 815,000 t diesel via pipeline in 2013 (Adds detail) Russian pipeline monopoly Transneft stopped diesel shipments to Ukraine and Hungary last month due to uncertainties over the pipe's ownership, a company spokesman said on Monday. The pipeline crosses Belarus and Ukraine and is the only one carrying Russian oil products to Hungary. Flows via the pipeline, which was built in Soviet times and meets around a third of Ukraine's diesel demand, have been suspended as violence in Ukraine plunge East-West relations to their lowest since the Cold...

The D.C. metro was plastered last month with ads by GoWithCanada.ca, promoting the proposed 1,179-mile Keystone XL Pipeline, a 36-inch-diameter crude oil pipeline originating in Hardisty, Alberta, and extending south to Steele City, Nebraska. Described as “America’s best energy partner,” Canada provides United States refineries every day with 2.4 million barrels of crude oil, more than Saudi Arabia and Venezuela combined. The ads explained that “80% of Canada’s oil sands production capacity is owned by North American companies.”

The vote to authorize immediate construction of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline may come to a crucial head next week, as two Senators introduced a bill on Thursday calling for binding legislation.

On Good Friday the White House announced the administration was indefinitely delaying a decision on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the construction project that will bring crude oil from Alberta, Canada to American refiners in Oklahoma and Texas. It has been more than 2000 days since TransCanada TRP -0.41% first submitted its paperwork to build Keystone. Since then, America has laid 10,000 miles of pipeline, over 4,000 miles of which transport crude oil. While this number may seem shocking given the hyperbolic debate surrounding Keystone, America is literally covered in pipelines. 185,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipelines and 320,000...

President Obama chose Good Friday to announce another delay in the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring crude oil from Canada to our refineries near the Gulf. If the pipeline is not approved, Alberta's oil will go to Asia-and the United States will be the big loser. According to Terry O'Sullivan, general president of the Laborers International Union of North America, writing in the Washington Post on April 25, "Despite efforts by an environmental fringe to hijack the mantle of progressivism or attempts by the far right to make Keystone a wedge issue, energy development is not a right-wing or...

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America's biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn't benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds...

A coalition of ranchers, farmers and native tribes are staging protests against the Keystone XL pipeline on the National Mall this week with teepees, horses and a sacred fire that will burn for days The National Mall in Washington, D.C., will look like a scene out of an Old Western this week, as the Cowboy and Indian Alliance holds a multi-day protest against the Keystone XL pipeline complete with teepees, horses and religious ceremonies. The confederation of ranchers, farmers and members of Native American tribes kicks off the week of protest and civil disobedience Tuesday, Earth Day, with a horse...