http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/15730-get-ready-for-the-pipeline
I really hate to make the whole morning about the intellectual monkeyhouse that Fred Hiatt's running at The Washington Post, but the paper's lead editorial today, pushing the president to sign off on the Keystone XL pipeline rather forces us to enter the hallways of flung poo one more time. If whoever wrote the editorial knows anything about the pipeline, the toxic gunk that it will carry through virtually the entire continent, and the events surrounding the controversy both nationally, and in the state of Nebraska, it is not evident from the editorial itself, which is little more than a vague infomercial for TransCanada, which plans to build the pipeline, and which is a large energy company and, therefore, unworthy of the benefit of any doubts. I choose to believe that whoever wrote this mess simply was late for a lunch date and tossed it off.
President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline this time last year, a result that Canada had every reason to be dismayed by, as did Americans whom the project would have employed. The issue is coming back, and the president has even less reason to nix the project than he did last time.
(Actually, "Canada" is as split over this environmentally calamitous project as we are, and TransCanada, because it is a large energy company, has been lying about the jobs the pipeline would create from the very start of the project. This should give the president pause.)
After years of federal review, there was little question last year that construction of the pipeline, which would transport heavy, oil-like bitumen from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico coast, should proceed. Thousands of miles of pipeline already crisscross this country. An environmental analysis had concluded that the risks of adding this new stretch were low. An economic review had found that Canada would get its bitumen to the world market - if not via pipeline to the gulf, then very likely by ship to China. Supply would make it to demand, one way or another.
(A fair-minded analysis would explain precisely what "heavy, oil-like bitumen" really is, and what it takes to remove it from the ground, and what it does to various lifeforms, including human beings. It also would point out that the thousands of miles of pipelines across the country already leak like sieves, including another Keystone pipeline run by TransCanada. It also would note that the pipeline was dreamed up in the first place because getting the gunk to China via, say Vancouver would put the project crossways with Canadian environmental laws and various treaties with indigenous tribes. Also, too; The Rocky Mountains. They thought up the pipeline because they knew our environmental regulations were lax and that we hadn't given a damn what the Indians thought since 1620. I am so very proud to be an American.)
Environmentalists nevertheless made Keystone XL a rallying issue. Among other things, they pointed to disquiet in Nebraska about the pipeline's proposed route, objecting that it would traverse environmentally sensitive areas, such as the state's Sand Hills.
(Regular readers of the blog know of our devotion here to the Oglalla aquifer, which is based on my long-held belief that we can do without having the Gobi Desert recreated between St. Louis and Denver. You will note that the Post here is limiting the "disquiet" in Nebraska to concern about the Sand Hills. This is the same bait-and-switch Governor Dave Heineman pulled the other day when he approved the revised pipeline route that avoids the Sand Hills but still crosses a piece of the aquifer. Also, a good part of the "disquiet" - nice word, Post - in Nebraska was occasioned because TransCanada was granted the power of eminent domain and has every intention of taking people's land away, which would "disquiet" me.)
The election is past, TransCanada has reapplied with a new proposed route, and this week Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R) signed off on the plan, following an analysis from the state's Department of Environmental Quality. The regulators found that the new route would avoid the Sand Hills and other areas of concern. Though there is always some risk of spill, they said, "impacts on aquifers from a release should be localized, and Keystone would be responsible for any cleanup." TransCanada will have to buy at least $200 million in insurance to cover any cleanup costs.
(We have discussed Heineman's bait-and-switch already. The survey he relied on is mischaracterized here. The aquifer is certainly an "area of concern," as we have said. And, applied to an energy company, the last two sentences are a joke, as half-a-million pelicans in the Gulf will testify. TransCanada found the $200 million for insurance under the cushions of the sofa.)
Mr. Obama should ignore the activists who have bizarrely chosen to make Keystone XL a line-in-the-sand issue, when there are dozens more of far greater environmental import. He knows that the way to cut oil use is to reduce demand for the stuff, and he has begun to put that knowledge into practice, setting tough new fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. That will actually make a difference, unlike blocking a pipeline here or there.
(Ah, and now we come to the Post's main point - hippie punching. It has made no serious attempt to address the legitimate environmental concerns regarding tar sands development and its implementation, the legitimate environmental concerns about the pipeline itself, or the legitimate environmental concerns regarding investing any trust in the good faith of an oil company. All it's really concerned about is that "activists" - to whom it condescends to explain what issues should be of "far greater environmental import" - somehow got in the way of The Way Things Are Supposed To Work. They have inconvenienced the Very Serious People with whom Fred Hiatt lunches between editing George F. Will's latest defense of climate-change denial. That's all the paper has here. The Post's dedication to actual democracy would embarrass the Plantagenets.)
Alas, though, the fix seems to be in. The wheels of the giant Not Giving A Damn machine in our nation's capital seem thoroughly greased. You can tell because the 53 senators - including two utterly useless Democrats - aren't even trying to come up with good lies anymore.
At a news conference Wednesday, senators from both parties said the Nebraska decision leaves Obama with no other choice but to approve the pipeline, which would carry up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day from tar sands in western Canada to refineries in Houston and other Texas ports. The pipeline also would travel though Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. "No more excuses. It's time to put people to work," Baucus said. "Back home, we call this a no-brainer," added Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Hoeven, of North Dakota, said the tar sands oil will be produced whether or not the U.S. approves the project. "Our choice is, the oil comes to us or it's going to China," he said.
You're only putting a very few people to work, and that's if you count the strippers. "No-brainer" is not a word Joe Manchin should toss around idly. And Hoeven's just lying. Either that, or he's too stupid to understand the phrase, "the world market." In actual fact, the gunk comes through us to refineries in Texas, whence it's just as likely to go to China as it would be if it sailed there from Vancouver, which it never would because the Canadians aren't as reckless with their land as we are with ours. You can pretend to be with this project because of jobs, or because of a spurious claim of energy independence. But, if you are in favor of this pipeline, and the gunk it will carry, you cannot claim to be serious about climate change. That, Joe, is a no-brainer.
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We've already seen the results first-hand of a foreign oil conglomerate's interest in protecting our environment.
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