Keystone Cluster: Help Me Understand Congress?

[puglogic]

I have a great idea. A big oil pipeline project gets shot down by the President for environmental and economic reasons. Let's make it even LESS palatable and then ramrod it through Congress less than 30 days later (by attaching it to the Highway Bill)! So it can hopelessly seize up the wheels of government once again, because gosh we haven't had enough of that lately. Won't that be a great use of taxpayer dollars?

Not that they didn't have a chance to improve its chances. Amendments that might have made the project more palatable for the American public:

An amendment requiring disclosure of how much of the transported oil simply gets exported and sold abroad.
An amendment prohibiting TransCanada from seizing land along the pipeline through eminent domain.
An amendment that would require that the Pipeline and Hazardous Safety Materials Administration (PHMSA) complete its review of the risks associated with diluted bitumen pipelines before allowing TransCanada to build one.
An amendment requiring TransCanada to prove its claim that the pipeline would indeed be made with U.S. steel (a claim they've crowed quite loudly...but refuse to commit to)


Nope. Nope. Nope. and Nope. Why? No clue.

Someone straighten this poor naive little soul out: If this really is going to "reduce our dependence on foreign oil," why would its proponents mind oversight of how much it turns around and exports once it gets to the Gulf? (Google "U.S. ethanol exports" if you'd like to see where our ethanol subsidies go, just for fun)

Because, call me crazy, this sounds to ME like lies, political grandstanding, short-sightedness, manipulation, and more lies. Back to our conversation about "who benefits" in this country. Here is a prime example of something bad in so many ways, but being pushed through by special interests with a lot of money to spend, packaged in shiny patriotic paper, but really just driven by corporate profit which will "trickle down" to no one.

What a massive waste of time, energy, and money to push this back through after making it even worse. I think I'm going to throw up now.

Handy link conservatives will prefer: http://www.masterresource.org/2012/02/waxman-and-markeys-fix-for-keystone-xl-protectionism-in-reverse/

Handy link progressives will prefer: http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/senate-republicans-release-amendment-revive-keystone-xl-zombie

[Alan]

A big oil pipeline project gets shot down by the President for environmental and economic reasons.
Is it true that the EPA appproved the pipeline but the administrations approval was initially delayed until after the upcoming elections based upon State Department recommendation?
If so, the entire fiasco is political.

[Gingerella72]

I don't understand it either. What I really don't understand is why Canada doesn't just refine the stuff right there in their own country instead of piping it thousands of miles through ours, creating multiple possibilities for contamination.

[ApatheticNoMore]

The obvious answer would be the cost of building oil refineries, I mean oil is still being refined in the U.S. even though the oil is mostly no longer here for a reason, because all the infrastructure is here. I imagine there are also ways of handling the waste and disposing of it here. (Trying to remember what book I read this in, think it was "The World Without Us").

But then again is the cost of building refineries really more than the cost of building all that pipeline? What's really going on?

[JaneV2.0]

I just heard that gasoline is now our top export. (I thought it was weaponry.) Whatever happened to energy independence?

[creaker]

Whatever happened to energy independence?

Global economics. Even if it's refined here, we still have to get in line with everyone else to buy it.

[Gregg]

Whatever happened to energy independence?

Want the truth? On our present course it will never happen. It is impossible. The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are much more real than the notion of energy independence in the US. To make it worse its not even a topic of serious discussion. Not just the fault of this administration. Its been this way since the 50's when it was learned that our domestic oil supply was finite and production was about to "peak". Someone obviously determined that it is easier/faster/cheaper to engage in resource wars than it is to develop a new resource.

BTW, it is correct that the refining infrastructure is located here and that it makes more economic sense to deliver crude products to those refineries than to build new ones in central Canada. Also in the mix is the fact that a gasoline pipeline would be a real environmental threat and a major terrorist target. Bitumen is difficult to even burn, gasoline is explosive.