Obama Administration Will Continue Dragging Its Feet Through the Tar Sands, Delaying Keystone Pipeline Decision

Pushed back over Nebraska court ruling, public response volume

Today the Obama administration announced another delay in deciding whether to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada through the United States until later in the year, possibly past the midterm elections.

The Hill notes a number of reasons for the delay:

Officials said they are stopping the clock on an assessment of the controversial project due to litigation in Nebraska over the pipeline's proposed route.

The department said it notified eight federal agencies engaged in the review that it would "provide more time for the submission of their views" on Keystone XL.

"Agencies need additional time based on the uncertainty created by the on-going litigation in the Nebraska Supreme Court which could ultimately affect the pipeline route in that state," the State Department said in a press release on Friday.

"In addition, during this time we will review and appropriately consider the unprecedented number of new public comments, approximately 2.5 million, received during the public comment period that closed on March 7, 2014," the agency said.

The administration's review was supposed to be completed by May.

The Nebraska lawsuit revolves around who in the state has the authority to authorize eminent domain to grab land to create the pipeline. The legislature passed a law giving the power to the state's governor. The judge ruled the state could not do that. From The Washington Post in February:

The Nebraska law struck down Wednesday allowed TransCanada to seek approval of the project from the state's elected five-member Public Service Commission or from [Gov. Dave] Heineman. After approving the route, Heineman gave the pipeline company power of eminent domain to acquire land. …

But [Lancaster County District Judge Stephanie] Stacy ruled that the state legislature could not pass such a law. "It is clear," she wrote, "the Legislature cannot .?.?. divest the PSC of jurisdiction over a class of common carriers and vest such power in another governmental agency, body of government, or branch of government, except the Legislature."

Most Americans want the Pipeline

Our most Reason-Rupe poll shows that a majority of Americans, 61 percent, support building the pipeline, despite the activism of environmentalists to halt it. A majority, 65 percent, think it will not impact President Barack Obama's favorability if he approves it. Reason's Emily Ekins notes:

Despite fervent opposition from the liberal wing of the president's party, 50 percent of Democrats favor approving the oil route while 43 percent oppose. However, Reason-Rupe's measure of ideological groups find that ideological liberals are opposed to the pipeline with 37 percent in favor and 57 percent opposed.

Republicans are most favorable of Keystone, by a margin of 82 to 13 percent. A majority (57 percent) of independents are also in favor, while 35 percent are opposed.

Comments

[SoyIsMurder]

Odd to see a libertarian magazine pushing for eminent domain seizures. Could it be that the David Koch's interest in the oilfield supply business trumps his support for property rights?

[Sevo]

Odd to see that some folks aren't capable of reading.
Could it be that conspiracy theories trump thinking?

[NotAnotherSkippy]

CO2 kills brain cells. It's worse than we thought!

[Sevo]

Well, look what happened to Algore!

[cmace]

So you believe in eminent domain?

[Sevo]

"So you believe in eminent domain?"

"Believe" in it? Of course; it's used to steal from people regularly. How could you not "believe" in it.
I don't support it.

[Terc]

Where does the article push for eminent domain seizures?

[John Thacker]

Hardly odd; the focus on process is entirely typical for libertarians. Here, we're asking if the federal government should use an illegitimate power in an illegitimate, ad hoc method in order to prevent something that itself plans to use illegitimate power.

I think it's a rather complicated issue, considering that that very Administration power to have to approve particular paths and plans makes it more likely that eminent domain get used. Without the need for such approval, it would be easier to route around holdouts.

It's a much-reduced, much lower stakes version of the argument, "Well, if you hate slavery or Communist oppression, why don't you support the federal government going to war over it here or elsewhere?"

[triclops]

This is an easy call for the Obaminator. Though he is thwarting the will of the public he claims to cherish (when it agrees with him), most people don't care that much. But the lefties who hate civilization hate the KPXL with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. So he gets to throw them a bone here with little downside to make up for the innumerable times he has betrayed his word with crony capitalist decisions.

[soflarider]

"A majority, 65 percent, think it will not impact President Barack Obama's favorability if he approves it."

I must be in the 35%. If Obama approved it, his favorability would go up significantly. Of course it is starting from a very low number so it wouldn't be hard for it to go up 100%!

[sharonsj]

The reason most people think the Keystone pipeline should be approved is: they are ignorant of the facts.

Republicans have claimed that (1) it will make us energy independent and (2) create 20,000 jobs. After the State Department report, that number went up to 42,000 jobs.

Neither claim is true. The Keystone execs testified that the oil will be sold to China and India. Actual job numbers are 3-5000 temporary jobs and 20-35 permanent jobs. The 42,000 are EXISTING jobs/businesses that will benefit for the brief time the pipeline is being built in their vicinity. You know, jobs like service attendant, waiter, bartender, and hooker.

And since when does a Canadian company get to use eminent domain in the U.S.? When they can bribe politicians, is when!

[Sevo]

Well, I don't support the pipeline because of E/D, but stupid lefty propaganda almost make me want to.

[OneOut]

The Keystone pipeline is a matter of national security.

Anyone who says otherwise need only look at the leverage Russia has over Ukraine and Europe to see it.

I can live with ED in a case like this. It is levels of magnitude different than leveling a neighborhood so that a favored land developer, who donates to the right political party, can build a shopping center with a future promise of higher property taxes.

[Sevo]

OneOut|4.22.14 @ 8:46AM|#
"The Keystone pipeline is a matter of national security."

Sarc, right?

[OneOut]

Not really.

Energy security is a very important part of any countries national security and Keystone is a building block for ours.

One of the reasons Japan attacked us a Pearl Harbor was because we had surrounded them and cut off their expanding needs for oil access.

Ukraine and Europe provide two contemporary examples.

[Sevo]

OneOut|4.22.14 @ 9:23AM|#
"Energy security is a very important part of any countries national security and Keystone is a building block for ours."

And, say 'food security' isn't?
Sorry, I've yet to see how something like E/D is preferable to negotiations, internally or otherwise, for what we need or desire.

[John Thacker]

Perhaps, but the reason most people who oppose the pipeline oppose it is because: they are ignorant of the facts.

For example, they think that a pipeline would somehow be worse for the environment than alternative transportation methods, which are less energy efficient and more prone to accidents and spills.

In politics, most people on both sides of any issues hold their position for wrong reasons, or at the very least reasons different from yours.

[Mt low rider]

Nailed it JT...these fuckwads would rather incinerate a few more people via derailments and accept the increased carbon footprint. They live to hate this, it's a textbook example of the cart before the horse.

[Mt low rider]

You are a mendacious twat...no one has said this one pipeline would single handedly make us energy independent.

It very possibly could be 20,000 during constuction when you add up workers who are engaged in the manufacture of the pipe and compressors, etc that will move ths crude.No one who knows how pipelines work would posit that once completed it will results in tens of thousands of jobs.

Then there is your China strawman. When talking about China it is an alternative if this doesn't get built. You really are retarded if you think they would ship oil to China through the midwest, the destination would be refineries in Okla. and La. It is entirely possible refined product could go anywhere in the world. The refined product that is produced by (gasp) American workers.

Eminent domain is a whole other question but you don't care about that. You 350 fucktards are convinced the world will end if you don't stop this project, perhaps you'll expire of fatal hysteria and not have to endure the apocalypse.

[OneOut]

I have a friend who is a CNC Machinist.

His shop has been working on the pipeline for over a year, with overtime.

[OneOut]

sharonsj

"Actual job numbers are 3-5000 temporary jobs and 20-35 permanent jobs."

If you believe that a pipeline from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast will only create 20 to 35 permanent jobs you are woefully ignorant

"The 42,000 are EXISTING jobs/businesses that will benefit for the brief time the pipeline is being built in their vicinity. You know, jobs like service attendant, waiter, bartender, and hooker."

So a welder getting a job for a year or two is a bad thing in you're eyes ?

A pipeline contractor getting a job that requires him hiring tens or hundreds of high paying jobs for a year or two of construction time is also a bad thing to you ?

Woefully ignorant doesn't do justice to your statement.

Disingenuous liar is more fitting.

And why do you hate the downtrodden working poor like bartenders and waiters ? I thought Liberals were the champions of poor socially abused sex workers ?

I know you made no claim to being a liberal but no one else would post such ignorance even knowing they are lying.

[sharonsj]

I watched the Congressional hearings. I read the independent studies and I read the State Department report...all because Republicans claimed Keystone would (1) make us energy independent and (2) produce 42,000 jobs. Both claims are blatant lies.

The pipeline sections are being built in China and Russia and shipped here--no American steel is being used. The Keystone execs said the refined oil would be sold to China and India.

The pipeline is expected to take about two years to build, so benefits are temporary. The effects will be permanent: investigative reporting proves that the pipeline companies don't spend the money required to maintain the systems. So we have had many leaks, spills and blowouts. People have died and the environment has been destroyed--and we bear the costs.

If anyone is woefully ignorant, it's you. If you think I'm lying, do your own fucking research (but I bet you won't).

[OneOut]

Doubling down on your stupidity isn't going to make you look any less stupid. In fact it just makes you look stupid once again, and a liar.

Please post a link to where someone of note said that the Keystone pipeline by itself will make us energy independent. Check MoveOn they might have posted a lie by someone like yourself who is as ignorant or disingenuous about the pipeline as you show yourself to be.

Pipeline sections, as you call them, are called pipe joints. Pipeline pipe is usually from 40 to 60 feet in length, unlike petrochemical pipe which is normally 20 feet. Joints of pipe are welded together on site. When all the joints of pipe are welded together only then is it called a pipeline. For you to attempt to insinuate that the pipeline will be pre fabricated by China and Russia and then shipped here pre made is a stupid statement, an outright lie, or both. A machinist friend of mine has been working at $30/hr for the last year and a half on Keystone peripherals. He and a bunch of others.

[OneOut]

To build a pipeline from the Canadian border to the Texas Gulf Coast is a mammoth construction project that will provide high paying jobs for many construction workers, many permanent jobs for maintenance and many more in the refineries. Construction workers build things and then go on to a new project. It is the nature of construction work. Construction workers depend on the "temporary" jobs as you denigrate them. Imagine that if Obama would have kept his word about spending some of the stimulus money and created some infrastructure jobs like he promised. You know, those shovel ready jobs that weren't shovel ready ? Chuckle Chuckle ? Building roads is also a temporary construction job. If Obama had kept his word about shovel ready infrastructure jobs would those be good jobs since Obama did it ? More roads equal more cars and more global warming though.

[OneOut]

And yes, the benefits will be permanent (somewhat). More plant workers will be hired in the refineries, full time and permanent, high paying jobs. The world (don't forget it's Gaia Day or something like that) will benefit from having the oil processed here under EPA regulations instead of in China without the EPA watchdog. Doesn't that make you happy ? Global warming remember ?

If you are so ignorant, or naive, to think that not building the pipeline will mean that the oil stays in the ground then your case is hopeless. Your lie about only 20 permanent jobs is ludicrous.

Perhaps you could do some of your "investigating" and compare the similarities of doomsday predictions your ilk made about the Alaska pipeline to the ones you are making today about Keystone and see how silly you all are.

[sharonsj]

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma: "Approving the Keystone is one thing the president can do today with his pen that will create thousands of well-paying jobs and help us take another step towards energy independence."

During the Keystone hearings, under oath, execs said the iron was coming from China and Russia (I assumed they meant the sections), and that the oil would be sold overseas.

I could list plenty of quotes. But, as usual, you won't do your own research or spend the hours it takes to sit through the hearings or read the reports, so why should I do it for you? Why bother when facts mean nothing to you folks? And it's so much easier to call people names.

And if you would read Greg Palast's articles in the UK's "The Guardian," you'd know that the lasting benefits from existing pipelines have been nothing but continued destruction. They still haven't done anything for the housing development in Arkansas destroyed by an oil spill. The Gulf is dead thanks to BP and locals are sick and dying. You don't know any of this because the mainstream media never gives updates. If you think a handful of jobs justifies more dead people, I don't think that defense will work when you're judged in the hereafter.

[OneOut]

sharonsj I know I'm wasting my time with you but this is just too funny.

1.What Inhofe said was 100% factual.

2."During the Keystone hearings, under oath, execs said the iron was coming from China and Russia (I assumed they meant the sections), and that the oil would be sold overseas."

So you made the "assumption that "iron" was a finished product. In this case a "section" of a pipeline. Has anyone ever told you how dangerous "assumptions" are. You are a perfect case in point. I can't see how someone could be so stupid as to HONESTLY make such an assumption. Iron is a raw material not a "section" of a pipeline. It beggars the mind. I think you are just lying about that as well.

3."The Gulf is dead thanks to BP and locals are sick and dying. You don't know any of this because the mainstream media never gives updates."

HaHaHaHaHa A guy above said it best.

Mt low rider|4.22.14 @ 1:38AM|#

You are a mendacious twat.

Sharonsj, I live on the Gulf Coast. I can see my fishing boat bobbing in the, soon to be, warm waters of the Gulf Coast from where I type. No one is sick and no one is dying because of the oil spill that had nothing to do with a pipeline anyway. (except for a very few who's lawyers told them they are). Once again you are lying.

[OneOut]

But according to you I don't know any of this because of the mainstream media ? The truth is that you are a stone cold liar. You "know" nothing about what you are talking about yet you continue to make idiotic and untrue statements that you have read on some greenie website.

How does it feel to be caught red handed lying and stating as fact something you know nothing about ?

Where did you do your "investigation" sharonsj ? MoveOn ? Where ever it was you might want to find a new source of information because the previous one has left you sounding like an ignorant buffoon.

When you find yourself in a hole it is best to stop digging.

[GILMORE]

" The Gulf is dead thanks to BP and locals are sick and dying. You don't know any of this because the mainstream media never gives updates"

"Dead"?

Jesus, couldn't you just be happy with 'there's still evidence of damage?' or something vaguely plausible? No = you have to go *full retard*.

The fact is that every single oil spill in history has been declared an 'ecological disaster', and completely forgotten within 10 years because there *is* no "long term" impact on such an enormous area.

See = Discovery pointing out that the 1979 Ixtoc Gulf spill - about 5X the size of Deepwater Horizon - effects had vanished within a decade, despite being considered 'catastrophic' at the time.

http://news.discovery.com/eart.....-ixtoc.htm

The fact that the spill happened in warm offshore waters made the effects of the Ixtoc I spill less than they otherwise might have been, experts agreed. Warm temperatures accelerate the evaporation, weathering and microbes' consumption of oil. Much of the oil stayed offshore, evaporating or settling out on the sea floor.

"We were surprised there were so relatively few effects," said Olof Linden of the World Maritime University in Malm?, Sweden and part of a United Nations expert group that assessed the Ixtoc I spill

[Sevo]

GILMORE|4.22.14 @ 6:58PM|#
" The Gulf is dead thanks to BP and locals are sick and dying. You don't know any of this because the mainstream media never gives updates"

"Dead"?

Sorry I missed this. I coulda used a bit of amusement earlier today.
Yep, the people who live around the Gulf are migrating to (where is it you live, sharon?).

[Gorilla tactics]

Any drop in energy prices produces growth and jobs. You know how progtards constantly go on and on about how CLINTON RAISED TAXES AND THE ECONOMY BOOMED!? What they never say is that the price of a barrel almost halfed from 1991-1998. They never mention that when they talk about the clinton years, because it's racist or something, so yes cheap energy is good.

[soflarider]

If this was a federal government stimulus funded job you'd be singing a different tune.

Multiplier effect!!!!

[John Thacker]

This dragged out Keystone XL decision is great for Metro advertising. So many ads by the Government of Canada at Metro stations.

[jessicatootillean]

before I saw the check that said $6940 , I did not believe that my brothers friend was like truley bringing in money in there spare time from there labtop. . there great aunt had bean doing this 4 only about and as of now cleard the mortgage on there house and bourt a gorgeous Citro?n 2CV . visit this page......
http://www.Works23.us

[Sevo]

Gee! A 2CV! Be still my heart!

[OneOut]

It is gud to no that yu don't not even hav tu b gud at the English to get rich enuff to have bourt a Citroen.

[OneOut]

Why does Reason allow this crap but then censor such activity generating posters like Murican ?

[dinkster]

I think it is quantity versus time. Even though Murican can spew his diatribe at a rate of five posts per minute, it only takes five minutes to delete fifty of his posts. The nigerian boat scammers only post one post per article, not even worth getting out of bed for.