Discussion for article #230245
This is wrong in so many ways I can’t even count them.
Careful, Mr. President. Congress may de-fund your ink supply!
Landrieu refused to campaign with Obama and now she wants him to kiss her ass on Keystone. Forget her. She’s a DINO.
Fuck Landrieu. She won’t be missed.
I can only hope the President continues to pound on the simple explanation: KXL might (and only might) create enough jobs to be a rounding error on the 200+ thousand jobs we are already creating every month, and most of those will be temporary. And the ultimate goal of the pipeline is ship Canadian sludge across America to be put on boats and sold to the rest of the world. America receives almost no benefit, and all of the risk of an environmental catastrophe…
I hope Obama signs it, although I am not familiar enough with the legislation to say for sure it wouldn’t trump the current approval process in Nebraska. I believe Nebraska still gets its say, but the law would remove federal objections.
Keystone has several benefits. First, it wouldn’t just carry Canadian oil–it would also remove some North Dakota oil from the rail lines it is currently traveling on. Rail transport is dangerous, and railroad congestion caused by all the oil traffic is holding up Amtrak and other freight business. That is bad for jobs.
Second, Keystone might take away the pressure to build the proposed pipeline to the west coast of Canada. Oil shipped there would go across the ocean by tanker to Asia. That is risky for a unique environment and sends oil to countries with poor environmental records.
Third, if the oil ships outside North America, we are more dependent on overseas sources like Venezuela. This oil is also shipped by tanker, across the Gulf of Mexico. Political instability means supply is not nearly as assured, which would reduce the bonus American industries are currently enjoying because we have some of the most dependable energy availability in the world. That also means jobs for americans.
Finally, politically, this is costing Democrats. Environmental voters didn’t come out in the last election, but the energy state voters sure did. Keystone is a perfect wedge issue for Repugnicants to argue that the Democrats are against business, and use suspect arguments to please an extreme environmental minority. That meme is extremely potent because it isn’t entirely untrue. Every over-the-top attack on the Keystone project becomes grist for the Repugnicant machine to paint all Democrats as out of touch and unrealistic.
It would be very good to get this relatively unimportant issue (speaking in purely practical terms) out from under the Democrats before the Presidential campaign for 2016 gets going in earnest.
I haven’t seen any reporting that says the pipeline would also carry oil from North Dakota – where did you read this?
Also, how would a failure to approve the pipeline make us less energy-independent, since this oil would go overseas anyway?