Keystone XL Pipeline

[heironymouspasparagus]

Totally random moment...  Really want to build one of these!  I could pull an oil tanker!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcC90TCF1zI

[Conan71]

Smoking by the gas pump, Cat diesel in a trike.  Think he's Darwinned out yet?

[heironymouspasparagus]

Smoking by the gas pump, Cat diesel in a trike.  Think he's Darwinned out yet?

Smoking....whether by a gas pump or not...is a Darwin event - just a matter of timing.

[Townsend]

All the Oklahoma jobs!!!

TransCanada asks US to Suspend Pipeline Application

http://publicradiotulsa.org/post/transcanada-asks-us-suspend-pipeline-application

TORONTO (AP) — The company behind the controversial Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S Gulf Coast has asked the U.S. State Department to pause its review of the project.

TransCanada said Monday a suspension would be appropriate while it works with Nebraska authorities for approval of its preferred route through the state. The move comes before the Obama administration was widely expected to reject it.

For seven years, the fate of the 1,179-mile (1,900 kilometer) long pipeline has languished amid debates over climate change, the intensive process of extracting Alberta's oil and U.S. energy security

The pipeline has long been a flashpoint in the U.S. debate over climate change. Critics oppose the concept of tapping the Alberta oil sands, saying it requires huge amounts of energy and water, increases greenhouse gas emissions.

The pipeline would have gone through North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

[cannon_fodder]

This whole thing has been a farce.

First, the conservatives have been gun-ho about government land grabs in Nebraska. A-OK for government to use eminent domain to take land from ranchers and give it to oil companies. What ever happened to small government arguments? There has been issues with this since day 1 - Nebraska ranchers have little to gain and lots to lose. No way the pipeline was going to be built even if approved until that was resolved (years away still?).

Second, the backers of Keystone XL owe Obama a huge kickback. They'd be losing their shirts if the thing was already well underway. Shell wrote off $2 BILLION and pulled out of its tar sands project due to low oil prices. They need $60+ oil for it to make cents. They see a long term stagnation and are shutting down projects requiring high dollar oil for a return. Does Obama get a 10% kickback for saving investors all that money?

This was never really about the pipeline. 90% of the noise was just an excuse to bash Obama.

[I'm not in favor or strongly opposed to the project. But I'm happy to call out what I see as bull...]

[heironymouspasparagus]

This whole thing has been a farce.

This was never really about the pipeline. 90% of the noise was just an excuse to bash Obama.

[I'm not in favor or strongly opposed to the project. But I'm happy to call out what I see as bull...]

Your eyesight is at least 20/20.

Probably better....

[TheArtist]

Your eyesight is at least 20/20.

Probably better....

He goes here...

http://www.looktulsa.com

Conveniently located on Brookside.  Sorry for the shameless plug.

[Conan71]

He goes here...

http://www.looktulsa.com

Conveniently located on Brookside.  Sorry for the shameless plug.

Well duh.  Anyone who wants to have 20/20 corrected PLUS really great frames would be silly to go anywhere else. 

[Townsend]

Obama Won't Yield to Company's Bid to Delay Keystone Pipeline Decision

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/us/politics/obama-wont-yield-to-companys-bid-to-delay-keystone-pipeline-decision.html?ref=energy-environment&_r=1

WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday said President Obama had no intention of bowing to a request from the company behind the Keystone XL oil pipeline to delay a decision on the project, saying he wanted to take action before his tenure ends...

[Conan71]

And it's toast:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration rejected a Canadian energy giant's application to build the Keystone XL pipeline on Friday, three individuals familiar with the decision said, capping a seven-year saga that became an environmental flashpoint in Barack Obama's presidency.
Obama was to announce the decision at the White House after meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry. The individuals confirming Obama's decision weren't authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Killing the pipeline allows Obama to claim aggressive action on the environment, potentially strengthening his hand as world leaders prepare to finalize major global climate pact within weeks that Obama hopes will be a crowning jewel for his legacy. Yet it also puts the president in a direct confrontation with Republicans and energy advocates that will almost surely spill over into the 2016 presidential election.

Although the project is dead for now, Obama's rejection will likely not be the last word for Keystone XL.

The pipeline's backers are expected to challenge his decision in court, and the Republican-controlled Congress may try to override the president, although those efforts have previously failed. The project could also get a fresh look in 2017 if a Republican wins the White House and invites TransCanada to reapply.

Another open question is whether TransCanada will try to recoup the more than $2 billion it says it has already spent on the project's development. Earlier in the year, the company left the door open to suing the U.S. government under NAFTA.

The 1,179-mile proposed pipeline has been in limbo for more than 7 years, awaiting a series of U.S. reviews that have dragged on more than 5 times longer than average, according to a recent Associated Press analysis. The pipeline requires a presidential permit to cross the U.S.-Canadian border.

Over time, the pipeline took on symbolic value of epic proportions, elevated by environmentalist and energy advocates alike into a proxy battle for climate change. Although Obama insisted both sides had overhyped the pipeline, his many delays only fueled the mushrooming political controversy.
Obama forecast his reluctance to authorize the pipeline on Wednesday when his administration rejected TransCanada's unusual request to suspend — but not withdraw — its application. The White House suggested the move was aimed at delaying until Obama leaves office and is potentially replaced by a Republican, although TransCanada insisted that wasn't the case.

TransCanada, an Alberta-based company with an expensive North American footprint, first applied for Keystone permits in September 2008 — shortly before Obama was elected. As envisioned, Keystone would snake from Canada's tar sands through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, then connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to specialized refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Democrats and environmental groups latched onto Keystone as emblematic of the type of dirty fossil fuels that must be phased out. Opponents chained themselves to construction equipment and the White House fence in protest, arguing that building the pipeline would be antithetical to Obama's call for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

But Republicans, Canadian politicians and the energy industry touted what they said were profound economic benefits — thousands of U.S. construction jobs and billions injected into the economy. They argued transporting crude by pipeline would be safer than alternatives like rail, and charged Obama with hypocrisy for complaining about the lack of investment in U.S. infrastructure while obstructing an $8 billion project.

Amid vote after vote in Congress to try to force Obama's hand, the president seemed content to delay further and further into the future.

The first major delay came in 2011, when Obama postponed a decision until after his re-election. He cited opposition to the proposed route through
Nebraska's sensitive Sandhills region and said the U.S. would wait while the route was revised. When Congress passed legislation requiring a decision within 60 days, Obama rejected the application, but allowed TransCanada to re-apply.

In a major speech unveiling his climate change agenda in 2013, Obama established a litmus test for Keystone.

"Our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Obama said at Georgetown University. Yet although a U.S.-commissioned environmental review found Keystone unlikely to exacerbate emissions, that assessment was based on outdated, higher oil prices, so environmentalists insisted it be redone.

The administration again delayed the decision — this time indefinitely — in April 2014, citing legal uncertainty in Nebraska. After seizing full control of Congress later that year, Republicans passed a bill forcing Keystone approval, which Obama rejected, wielding his veto pen for only the third time.

For TransCanada, the financial imperative to build Keystone may have fallen off recently amid a sharp drop in oil prices that could make extracting and transporting the product much less lucrative. But TransCanada's CEO has insisted that isn't the case. When the company first proposed Keystone in 2008, oil was suffering an even bigger plunge and the global economy was collapsing.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/energy/sources-obama-administration-nixes-keystone-xl-pipeline/article_5f239e53-2884-5649-93c3-9ed36ae0d034.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

He goes here...

http://www.looktulsa.com

Conveniently located on Brookside.  Sorry for the shameless plug.

Ok...so who is Look ??   I have been looking for an optical place - one lens still gives me 20/15, but one has slipped to 20/20, so need to get it fixed.  You saying they are good??

[Conan71]

Ok...so who is Look ??   I have been looking for an optical place - one lens still gives me 20/15, but one has slipped to 20/20, so need to get it fixed.  You saying they are good??

Quite good at making sure your prescription will work and he might even add some style to your life. 

He knows his stuff.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Quite good at making sure your prescription will work and he might even add some style to your life. 

He knows his stuff.

I don't know if I, let alone friends and family, could stand it if I had some style to my life...!!  Might be too much of a shock to have all at once like that!

I have one lens that still corrects to 20/15, but the other has slacked off to 20/20.  Need to look into that...

[Vashta Nerada]

Same tactic:  Buy off the local law, have them brutalize landowners and the media.


Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All.
https://www.thenation.com/article/amy-goodman-is-facing-prison-for-reporting-on-the-dakota-access-pipeline-that-should-scare-us-all/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/first-amendment-and-sioux_b_12510004.html

[erfalf]

Same tactic:  Buy off the local law, have them brutalize landowners and the media.


Amy Goodman Is Facing Prison for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All.
https://www.thenation.com/article/amy-goodman-is-facing-prison-for-reporting-on-the-dakota-access-pipeline-that-should-scare-us-all/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/first-amendment-and-sioux_b_12510004.html

Get off private property and then this scary. Until then. If these people were standing in my office "peacefully protesting" they still get arrested.