Tag Archives: Keystone pipeline

International news, national news

Keystone Pipeline causes heartburn

The pipeline that most members of Congress seem to support is causing me some grief.

It’s the Keystone project. It will carry petroleum from Alberta, through the middle of the United States, to Texas Gulf Coast ports. Then it will be shipped abroad, where refineries will process it into all sorts of products.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/house-passes-keystone-xl-bill-112903.html?hp=b1_c3

The House of Representatives has approved legislation supporting it. The Senate is going to vote next week.

Should they agree with their House colleagues?

Sure. Why not?

President Obama isn’t sold on the project. He’s signaling he might veto the Keystone Pipeline bill if and when it lands on his desk. How come? Well, he doubts it will be a big job producer and notes that Canada is going to export the oil “everywhere else.” Thus, he believes it won’t have an impact on gasoline prices.

I’ll disagree with that last statement.

The fuel is going to pour into the worldwide supply that continues to outstrip worldwide demand. Therefore, the price of oil — and gasoline — continues to decline.

The federal government already has issued reports that suggest the pipeline would have minimal environmental impact.

I guess I just can’t get too worked up over this project one way or the other.

However, if I had a vote on it, I’d probably vote to build it, help our northern friends, pump more oil into the world market and hope it continues to keep downward pressure on the price of gasoline at the pump.

 

national news, political news

GOP scores sweep; now let's govern … actually

The deed is done.

Republicans got their “wave” to sweep them into control of the Senate, with an eight-, maybe nine-seat pickup in the U.S. Senate. What’s more, they picked up a dozen more seats in the House to cement control of that body.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-control-at-stake-in-todays-midterm-elections/2014/11/04/e882353e-642c-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

The only undecided race will be in Louisiana, which is going to a runoff. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu appears to be in trouble there. Big surprise, huh?

What happens now?

Despite all the good economic news, there appears to be rampant discontent out there with a Democratic administration and its friends in Congress. So the voters spoke, tossing out Democratic incumbents and turning seats over where Democrats had retired.

Republicans say they want to work with the president where possible. I’m not yet ready to swill that drink.

Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell had declared his primary goal in 2009 was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. It didn’t work out that way. So now he wants to actually govern — he says.

We’ve got this immigration thing hanging over the Congress; that oil pipeline known as “Keystone” needs to be decided; the president has an attorney general appointment to make; and, oh yeah, the Affordable Care Act still is on the table, even though it’s working and insuring Americans.

How is Congress going to get past all those differences? And how is the White House going to reconcile itself with the change in power in the upper legislative chamber?

My friends on the right are crowing this morning that Democrat Harry Reid no longer will run the Senate. They now believe Hillary Clinton’s presidential “inevitability” in 2016 has been damaged by this shifting power base. They think the president has been made irrelevant as he finishes out his tenure in the White House.

I shall now remind my right-leaning friends of something critical.

The 2016 political roadmap looks a bit different than the 2014 map. Democrats will be positioned to take over some key Republican Senate seats in a presidential election year, which historically bodes quite well for Democrats.

This was the Republicans’ year and their time. Nice going, folks.

It’s time now to actually govern and to show that we can actually keep moving this country forward — which it has been doing for the past six years.

 

 

Uncategorized

Pipeline won’t affect climate … so let’s build it

My environmentalist sensibilities have been taxed by this debate over whether to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the middle of the United States.

My inclination is to oppose such a thing because, the theory goes, it would emit too many carbon-based pollutants and harm the planet’s climate.

Then comes this government report that says the pipeline’s effect on the climate is negligible.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/02/02/obama_running_out_of_reasons_to_reject_keystone_xl_121434.html

Oh, what to do?

I believe President Obama should rethink his opposition to it and allow its construction.

The report comes from the U.S. State Department, which heretofore had been on the right wing’s hit list of nasty federal agencies. Now State has declared the Keystone project poses no serious environmental threat, which pleases proponents of the pipeline. They contend the project will create jobs and will strengthen U.S. energy policy.

The pipeline would carry oil pulled from western Canada tar sands to Nebraska, where it would then be sent through existing pipelines to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined. Much of it would be exported abroad. Some of it would be used here at home.

Its job creation potential is huge, which of course is what the president wants. It also brings those vast tar sands reserves into play, relieving North America of the need to import oil from faraway nations, such as those in the volatile and explosive Middle East.

Is it a win-win deal? Not just yet. But it’s getting closer to becoming one, based on the State Department’s assessment of minimal environmental impact.