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The House, defying a White House veto threat, passed GOP legislation Wednesday that extends transportation program funding through September and mandates construction of a controversial oil pipeline from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries. All but 14 Republicans, with support from 69 Democrats, voted 293-127 for legislation that falls far short of Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) earlier plan to move a sweeping five-year, $260 billion package. But Boehner’s retreat serves two crucial tactical and political purposes for the Speaker. It enables talks with the Senate on the highway bill and keeps the Keystone pipeline – which is at the heart of...

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is throwing a $5 billion solution at Canada’s growing supply of stranded oil, announcing Thursday that it plans to nearly triple the capacity of a pipeline that would kick open the door to Asia. The project is one of the most expensive Kinder Morgan has undertaken, due in part to the terrain and environments through which the project would run, said Emily Mir, a spokeswoman for the company. The Houston-based pipeline giant said it will expand its Trans Mountain pipeline system, which traverses the Canadian Rockies en route from Edmonton, Alberta, to the Vancouver area of...

Energy Policy: The administration claims there's no "silver bullet" to lower gas prices and that they've kept rising in the face of higher domestic production, as if the law of supply and demand has suddenly been repealed. It hasn't, and increased production on private and state lands doesn't blunt the impact on prices when 94% of federal onshore lands and 97% of federal offshore lands are off-limits to oil and gas drilling. A key factor in gas prices is and always has been future supplies and potential disruptions to those supplies. Another is the fact that we are the only...

The cost of crude oil to refiners varies across regions based on the different types of crude oil available to refiners and transportation bottlenecks in that region. This cost, called the refiner acquisition cost, also includes transportation and other fees paid by the refiner. Historically, there has been little variation across regions. From 2004 through 2009, the average of the annual spread between the most expensive and least expensive regional refiner acquisition cost was $5.52 per barrel. In 2010, the spread was $7.46 per barrel, and in 2011, it widened dramatically to $23.78 per barrel. The regional variation in the...

The damage is done. Even if President Barack Obama decides to approve the Keystone XL pipeline at some point in the future, he already sent a message to Canada that our northern neighbor can't rely on us as its only energy customer --- and Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper heeded it.In an interview with former U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) in D.C. yesterday, Harper explained that Canada will now seek to expand its export market to Asia and will also cease to supply oil to the United States at a discounted rate. “Look, the very fact that a ‘no’ could...

Crude-on-crude competition for export pipeline space is moving up predictions for a pinch point faced by oilsands producers that some observers warn will have to postpone or scrap future expansions, unless new pipe is laid. Fast-growing supplies of conventional crude from North Dakota and western Canadian provinces are fighting for room in pipelines with rising bitumen output, the Canadian Energy Research Institute said in a report Monday, forecasting that by 2015 oilsands growth could grind to a halt should no additional lines be built. Other observers acknowledged they are also retooling their outlooks with a similar view, citing a well-documented...

Amid political turmoil surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline, two companies announced plans to create a rival system to bring crude oil from Canada and the northern United States to the Gulf Coast. The move is a response to mounting supply pressure in the north, where advances in drilling technology have heralded an oil boom that has created a glut of landlocked crude with limited transportation options. Enbridge, Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, and Enterprise Products Partners L.P., of Houston, will collaborate on a $2 billion pipeline from Cushing, Okla., to the Houston area, according to an announcement late Monday. Enbridge will...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- As President Barack Obama pushes to fast-track an oil pipeline from Oklahoma south to the Gulf Coast, an American Indian tribe that calls the oil hub home worries the route might disrupt sacred sites holding the unmarked graves of their ancestors. Sac and Fox Nation Chief George Thurman plans to voice his concerns this week in Washington. He said he fears workers placing the 485-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would run from Cushing to refineries on Texas' Gulf Coast could disturb holy ground without consideration of the tribe.

To hear the White House tell it, Barack Obama might be the most pipeline-friendly president ever to occupy the Oval Office. In advance of Obama's March 22 visit to Cushing, Okla, the White House released a fact sheet detailing the president's support for oil pipeline projects. "The need for pipeline infrastructure is urgent, because rising American oil production is outpacing the capacity of pipelines to deliver oil to refineries," the White House wrote. "It is critical that we make pipeline infrastructure a top priority." When the president appeared in Cushing, White House image-makers positioned him in front of huge stockpiles...

Amid criticism he isn't doing enough to beat back rising gas prices, President Obama Thursday said he is calling on his administration "to cut through red tape, break through bureaucratic hurdles," and make the Southern leg of the controversial Keystone pipeline "a priority." In fact, "we're drilling all over the place right now," the president said, citing his administration's directive to open up millions of acres for oil and gas exploration in 23 states. Under his watch, Mr. Obama said, the number of operating oil rigs has reached a record high, he said, and the U.S. has added enough new...

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Fast Track the Keystone Pipeline? All of the above Energy policy is big fat LIE!

Politics: The president stages a photo-op in Oklahoma to take credit for the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline that doesn't need his approval and for oil production on private and state lands beyond his jurisdiction. If one of his aides some morning remarked on a particularly lovely sunrise, it wouldn't surprise us if President Obama responded with a "thank you," so gifted is he in taking credit for successes that he has nothing to do with and that occur despite, not because, of his policies. So it will be Thursday, when Obama is scheduled to appear in Cushing, Okla.,...

--snip-- The president’s enthusiastic backing of the portion of the pipeline running from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast won’t actually speed pipeline construction, according to TransCanada, the company building it. President Barack Obama’s promise to expedite review of the southern leg of TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL pipeline won’t speed up the timeline for the project, which already is slated to start construction as soon as June… TransCanada’s president of energy and oil pipelines, Alex Pourbaix, said in an interview March 6 that construction on the Cushing phase of Keystone could begin as soon as June. The company doesn’t expect...

As gasoline prices continue to rise, President Obama on Thursday pushed back on attacks from Republicans that he is blocking the Keystone XL oil pipeline and is against drilling, arguing his administration has added enough new oil-and-gas pipelines to "encircle the Earth and then some." Obama highlighted his support for the southern leg of the controversial Keystone pipeline, which would carry oil from Cushing, Okla., to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Appearing before a backdrop of oil pipelines in Cushing, Obama said he was making construction a priority through an executive order issued Thursday that instructs federal agencies to expedite...

A solid majority of Americans think the U.S. government should approve of building the Keystone XL pipeline, while 29% think it should not. Republicans are almost twice as likely as Democrats to want the government to approve the oil pipeline. About half of independents also approve. These data were collected as part of Gallup's annual Environment survey, conducted March 8-11, 2012. The Keystone XL oil pipeline is a politically divisive project, which President Obama and the Republicans in Congress have been battling over. The proposal from TransCanada Corporation for building a pipeline to carry crude oil from Canada down to...

The Democrats under Obama are bankrupt of ideas. And Obama’s latest ineffectual shot at having it both ways on energy is the moral equivalent of declaring Chapter 13 bankruptcy on energy-policy. You see, Obama’s newest, bestest commitment to energy security for the US is in touring the half of the Keystone pipeline that’s being built without his permission. That’s because the part of the pipeline under his control isn’t being built because it was denied a building permit by none other than BHO himself “The Obama administration denied a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada,” reported...

President Obama plans to announce in Cushing, Oklahoma Thursday that his administration will expedite the permit process for the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, a source familiar with the president’s announcement tells CNN. In January, the Obama administration denied a permit for the 1,700 mile long Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would stretch from Canada’s tar sands development to the U.S. Gulf Coast. That decision was met by persistent Republican criticism that the president has not been doing everything possible to create jobs and combat high gas prices… Senior administration officials would not confirm the president’s plan to...

Many Insiders contended that the White House, in weighing the political implications of issuing these rules, will “wait for a less turbulent political environment to move forward”—after the November election passes. “OMB is going to hold on to the [regulations] until after the election. No matter what the [regulations] say, they are going to send shock waves through the important Rust Belt states. To release [them] earlier would be a certain self-imposed wound,” one Insider said. Some Insiders maintained that Obama already handed a victory to his environmental base when he rejected a permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline...

President Obama plans to announce in Cushing, Oklahoma Thursday that his administration will expedite the permit for the southern half of the Keystone XL pipeline, a source familiar with the president's announcement tells CNN. In January, the Obama administration denied a permit for the 1,700 mile long Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would stretch from Canada's tar sands development to the U.S. Gulf Coast. That decision was met by persistent Republican criticism that the president has not been doing everything possible to create jobs and combat high gas prices.