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It’s not a bad question, especially since it’s become clear that at least a few Senate Democrats want to claim some credit for job creation. Unfortunately for Claire McCaskill, who has more need than most to build some moderate credibility with her constituents, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is more interesting in being “combative all the time,” and says she will press for a compromise that meets House Republicans somewhere in the middle:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR VIDEO Democratic Sen. McCaskill accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of using divisive rhetoric during the payroll tax cut extension debate raging in...

WASHINGTON – Sensing a political opening, House Republicans on Tuesday approved a plan that links speedy approval of an oil pipeline from Canada to a measure renewing a payroll tax cut. The vote sets up a showdown with President Barack Obama, who has threatened to veto the bill. The White House says the bill "plays politics" with what should be its main goal: cutting taxes for the middle class. Republicans said the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas would help the president achieve his top priority -- creating jobs -- without costing a dime of taxpayer money. Obama's...

Congress cannot accelerate Keystone decision: State DepartmentReuters – 12 hrs ago WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department warned on Monday that a plan by congressional Republicans to fast track the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline decision would violate environmental laws and force it to withhold approval. "Should Congress impose an arbitrary deadline for the permit decision ... the department would be unable to make a determination to issue a permit for this project," the State Department said in a statement. **SNIP** Environmentalists say the pipeline would threaten Nebraska's Sand Hills region and lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, and had...

The State Department is warning Republicans that forcing a decision on the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline within two months wonÂ’t bring the project approval they're seeking. House Republicans are including a provision in payroll tax cut legislation that would require State to issue a permit for the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline within 60 days, unless the president determines that itÂ’s not in the national interest. Senate GOP leaders are also pushing the Keystone provision. But a State spokesman said Monday that the 60-day time frame would leave the administration unable to issue the permit for TransCanada Corp.Â’s proposed $7...

Jobs: The president says that extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut will create more jobs than an oil pipeline from Canada. There are at least 20,000 members of the 99% who would disagree. You can see why the economy is in trouble. Vice President Joe Biden, the stimulus sheriff, says he turned first to MF Global's Jon Corzine for economic advice and President Obama thinks 20,000 people getting extended unemployment benefits does more for the economy than 20,000 people getting paychecks to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. In the president's view, extending the payroll tax cuts...

White House denies pipeline delay was political decisionBy Ben Geman - 12/01/11 08:01 AM ET The White House is pushing back against fresh GOP claims that the administration had politics in mind when it delayed a decision on whether to approve the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline until after the 2012 elections. Senate GOP leaders revived the allegation Wednesday when rolling out new legislation that would force a decision about permitting the proposed Alberta-to-Texas pipeline within 60 days. But White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters that the State Department delay announced last month stems from the need to consider...

The Soviet art of socialist realism used to be defined as “socialist in substance, national in form.” Threats to prevent the construction of a trans-Caspian gas pipeline by military force are also a form of Kremlin art: bluff in their substance, even if brutal in their form. Pursuant to President Dmitry Medvedev and the Russian Security Council’s October 14 decision (see EDM, October 21), Moscow is undertaking diplomatic and political countermeasures to the EU-planned gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Europe. Russian naval exercises in the Caspian Sea, May 2011 Statements by Medvedev and the Russian foreign ministry claiming that trans-Caspian...

The proposed merger of Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) and El Paso Corp. (El Paso) announced on October 16, 2011 would create the nation's largest natural gas pipeline company. If approved by state and federal regulatory officials, the combined company would operate about 67,000 miles of natural gas pipelines (see the blue and red lines in the map), or about 22% the U.S. natural gas pipeline network. Upon closing, the proposed $38 billion transaction would be one of the biggest natural gas pipeline mergers in United States history. El Paso's natural gas pipeline network complements Kinder Morgan's natural gas system. By...

President Obama and his advisers seriously misread the effect of the delay of the Keystone XL pipeline. The alternative Northern Gateway pipeline is not a dream, but close to a reality which can ship oil to China and expand the use of B.C. Natural Gas. The Keystone XL proposal would build a pipeline from the tar sands of Northern Alberta through Southern Saskatchewan into Montana and south to the Texas Gulf for end use of the recovered crude oil. Its ultimate capacity would be 900,000 barrels per day and would significantly reduce imports to the USA from OPEC nations, none...

[The author is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer]...The U.S. decision to defer decision on the Keystone XL pipeline has tossed an eagle into the dovecot. A “no brainer” decision regarding the merits of providing secure energy (as well as j-o-b-s) has apparently been adroitly manipulated by the brainless. Consequently, the State Department disclaimer that the delay decision was not “political” is disingenuous at best; it passes neither the sniff nor the giggle test.

The two big energy stories of the moment are the Obama administration’s announcement that it will wait another year before making a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, and the continued pummeling of the Department of Energy and Energy Secretary Steven Chu for their handling of the $529 million loan guarantee to Solyndra. So how do those two projects compare on critical issues such as economic impact and overall energy use? Even a cursory look at the two deals shows that, once again, the Obama administration’s energy priorities are — how to put this charitably? — misguided.

Energy Policy: The president who often lets policy decisions be driven by others now says the pipeline to bring Canada's tar sands oil to America is his decision to make. So make it already, Mr. President. The administration's industrial policy of picking winners and losers, particularly in the energy sector, has given us such white, or should we say green, elephants as the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. It has an opportunity to pick a real winner — the Keystone XL pipeline to bring oil from Canada's rich tar sands to the American market. So far the administration has given...

Energy Policy: The administration plans to study rerouting the Keystone XL pipeline until after next year's election, delaying needed jobs and energy. By that time, Canada's oil will be on its way to China. That the American people are merely human sacrifices on the altar of environmentalism is seen by Thursday's announcement by the State Department that it has caved in to greenie demands that the Keystone XL pipeline intended to bring Canadian tar sands oil to the American market be rerouted around an aquifer that supplies water to eight states. The process will take at least a year, kicking...

Enbridge Inc and TransCanada Corp have raced forward with new pipeline plans in the fierce battle to unclog a year-long U.S. oil bottleneck, setting up a potentially swift collapse to an unprecedented distortion in crude markets. After purchasing ConocoPhillips’ stake in the 350,000 barrel-per-day Seaway pipeline for $1.15 billion, Enbridge and new partner Enterprise Products Partners said they plan to reverse the line’s flow to send crude locked up at the Cushing, Oklahoma, oil hub to the Texas coast. That means they will not pursue a separate project unveiled in September. Separately, rival TransCanada said it could begin construction of...

Uncertainty clouding development of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline mounted Tuesday with the U.S. State Department not bending on a 2013 review completion that the firm had suggested the day before could come months earlier. Despite the Calgary company’s assertion Monday it could satisfy a key element of a new federal study by rerouting its pipeline in Nebraska, the State Department said the timeline still stands, which confirms regulatory delays of more than a year for the $7-billion project. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a media briefing in Washington, D.C., that based on previous assessments, “we anticipate the evaluation...

A day after Canadian oil company TransCanada agreed to reroute its proposed Keystone oil pipeline around Nebraska' ecologically sensitive Ogallala Aquifer, the State Department refused to budge on a new environmental review of the project that is not slated for completion until 2013 -- after the presidential election. The State Department on Tuesday denied that the delay is designed to appease environmentalists, a core constituency of the Obama administration. "I can only say, as we've said repeatedly on the record, that the White House had no bearing on the decision-making process," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Tuesday. "The State...

We Need Jobs, Depending on the Color The White House rhetoric has been consistent in regards to giving lip service to its relentless focus on creating jobs, especially those of a certain color. Do jobs have a color? They do if you are a government official, in particular an empathetic, self ordained, omniscient and paternalistic liberal, endlessly fighting for the working class. Remember, the conservatives fight for the rich, and the rich don’t even work! They just “have a lot of money”. Even the Republicans believe in colored jobs, so far as they have regurgitated the liberal lingo in their...

The fallout continues from Barack Obama’s decision to bail out on approval of the Keystone XL pipeline until the election is safely behind him. Up in Canada – home of the company attempting to complete this continent spanning feat – the Globe and Mail notes the derision being rained on the administration by our former Ambassador to the Great White North. “It’s blatant politics,” said David Wilkins, former U.S. ambassador to Canada, in an interview Friday. Mr. Wilkins lobbied for Keystone on behalf of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “It’s politics at its worst. It was a move by...

Just as in the United States, the Keystone XL pipeline has lots of friends and enemies in Canada. One of the more vocal backers from up North is The Calgary Herald, which is the hometown newspaper for Keystone XL pipeline builder TransCanada. The paper had a scathing editorial about President Barack Obama’s decision last week to delay the pipeline approval until after the 2012 elections: “U.S. President Barack Obama last week sacrificed 20,000 jobs to save one – his own. This should come as no surprise, for fact and reason often fall victim to politics.” The newspaper also bashes on...

TransCanada Corp. said Monday it expects U.S. President Barack Obama will have a recommendation over the fate of its $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline shortly after a new six-month review in Nebraska. The Calgary firm signed an agreement with Nebraska lawmakers Monday to reroute the pipeline around environmentally sensitive lands that contain an aquifer that provides drinking water to millions. If legislation introduced Monday is approved by state senators, the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality will study and suggest a pipeline path. The diversion around the state’s Sandhills region and Ogalla aquifer is a move TransCanada’s vice-president of Keystone Pipelines, Robert...