http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-to-deny-keystone-pipeline-2012-1

The Obama administration is expected to reject the controversial Keystone Pipeline this afternoon, according to Fox News.

Transcanada will however be able to reapply with an alternate route going through Nebraska.

The administration will be unlikely to approve the pipeline under the tight timeline included in the payroll tax cut extension, which requires a decision by February 21

Recently, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had this to say about the delay in the project:

"The State Department runs this process, as you know, which is a precedent that long predates this administration. The delay in the review was a result of concerns in Nebraska about the route by which the pipeline was meant to take -- the route the pipeline was meant to take through Nebraska and how it would affect the aquifer there -- concerns that were expressed by a number of stakeholders there, including the Republican governor of Nebraska.

When the State Department decided that those concerns were legitimate and there needed to be an alternate route, that began another process, and this process requires the careful weighing of a variety of criteria, and that has always been the case.

Everyone -- a lot of people, and certainly we made clear back in December that a political effort to short-circuit that process for ideological reasons would be counterproductive because a proper review that weighed all the important issues in this case could not be achieved in 60 days -- according to the State Department, which, again, runs this review process.."

Why the controversy?

The project has been the subject of a heated debate. Those in favor of the pipeline point to the 8.5% unemployment rate, and point out that the pipeline could create much-needed high-paying jobs. Moreover, it would provide cash-strapped governments with tax revenues. On the other hand after the BP Deepwater spill of 2010 and ExxonMobil's July 2011 pipeline spill, environmentalists are pressuring the Obama administration to nip the project in the bud.

It's going to be all out for the Oil Co's to get Mitt elected now.

I'm pretty sure it already was.

Fish on...

Todd

It's going to be interesting to see this play out. Do the republicans tell the red state Nebraska to pound sand and "screw your state's rights," and let big government force them to allow the pipeline?

And then how will they explain away that all that oil that makes it to Texas is sold on the global market, thus having no positive effect on US oil price.

If the republicans are really serious about using that oil to the benefit of the nation, why not propose building a refinery in one of the Dakotas? It wouldn't have anything to do with all those Texan oilmen that are involved, would it?

Take a peak at the date the last " new " refinery of any real capacity was built, way back just can not remember how far. They expand or modify existing simply because the permitting process for a totally new facility is rather lengthy ( years ) and very very expensive. Not sure I care for how the Canadian oil is extracted but if that pipeline is not built then it will go to the West coast of BC and to China. I think maybe I dislike the idea of more Super Tankers off NW coast more.

It goes back to a failure of our congress and both political parties to put in place a national energy policy that gets us off imported oil. Resource wise it is doable, politically nah as both parties sold their souls to special interest on one side or the other of the issue.

Gotta admit though if our congressional folks were birds we would have the best looking flock of Peacocks on the planet!

What dummy would wan't to put a pipeline in America?

Write something into the permit that the Oil can't be exported then sit back and listen to whining. The one thing the Wall Street energy traders hate is a glut.

The oil is going overseas no matter where the pipeline gets built...and will do "nothing" for gas prices for us here in America.

Unless you are:

1. The oil company
2. The dude who will get the temporary job building the pipeline

...you will get nothing out of this at all...nothing good, at least.

Fish on...

Todd

My feelings on the LNG issue, alot of habitat damage some short term jobs followed by 50 years of natural gas price manipulation which benefits about 1%. No Thanks

How about screw just another chance to fukk up our environment?

Fish on...

Todd

This is what the pipeline company had to say. Doesn't seem like much of a tragedy.

Calgary, Alberta - January 18, 2012 - TransCanada Corporation (TSX, NYSE: TRP) (TransCanada) announced today it has received the U.S. Department of State's decision that the Presidential Permit for Keystone XL has been denied.

"This outcome is one of the scenarios we anticipated. While we are disappointed, TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL. Plans are already underway on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project," said Russ Girling, TransCanada's president and chief executive officer. "We will re-apply for a Presidential Permit and expect a new application would be processed in an expedited manner to allow for an in-service date of late 2014."

Banking on a new permit signed by a new President?

If we lost the imports for some reason, we will have nothing to fall back on for our own use. Look at it as a savings account, the just in case.

Or it is signed by the current guy if he wins AFTER the election. By doing that he keeps the enviros on board and appeases labor.

This will please his base, but just another nail in his coffin...laffin' Gas in predicted to be close to 5.00 dollars a gallon come memorial Day weekend.

http://beaconnews.ca/blog/2012/01/option...ateway-delayed/


Wait! The O/G industry has a backup plan..

They need to build several refineries north of the Great Lakes, wait..the Eco weenies will pitch a bitch.

For 7 Billion you would think they could build a heck of a nice refinery in ND, of course there's no super tankers nearby.

Don't need super tankers; just refine enough products to sell to Americans in America. Keep the refined products off the global market.

I would rather give our money to our friends in Canada, instead of the Ragheads.

I knew an eco weenie would come along soon. hehehe

Fuk you Kid.
You've prolly been off the grid for decades and run on goat dung methane.





















Phuket, let's just go take Canada.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...-new-ad/?src=tp



Nice timing

Sol Duc, maybe you missed it the first three times it was posted...

The reason they need a pipleine all the way to the Gulf is to put it on ships and ship it far away from the US of A. If it were for our use, they'd build a refinery in North Dakota and be done with it.

The oil is going to China, just like US and Canadian timber...it won't do us any good whatsoever, except for the very short term.

Fish on...

Todd

Look, if the people involved in this weren't such losers they would not drill at all until the world supply is almost gone (10 years or so), and then when it is start drilling and charging. The way they go at this stuff is akin to a hooker in a whorehouse. Same goes for lumber.

Bingo! We have a winner.

Regardless of what direction the eventual pipeline's built, the oil's heading to China .

Some pie would be better than none at all.

Mf

Fuel is just like any other commodity, you sell it to the market. How can anybody complain about American businesses exporting their product? It's not like there is a shortage of fuel here.

Then why is the price so high?

If there was a shortage of fuel it would be rationed. The price is high due to product production mulipulation, and off shore sales that compete price wise.

Please explain how that's in the best economic interests of America.

OPEC. Duh.

Who do you think owns these oil companies? They're all publicly traded companies owned my shareholders.

So can anyone explain why we need to rush through a pipeline designed to ship Canadian oil to China? Especially when the company that wants to do it says they have a better alternative route pretty much all ready to go?

No reason to endanger a huge aquifer just to rush this through. Don’t agree - ask Nebraska’s republican governor and senator.

Did I say it was in the best economic interest of America?

DV look at the issue deeper as it was something about the enviro impact assessment done by a subsidiary of one of the companies or company riding herd on the show. The alternate your talking about was not pushed as ............. got me as it resolved the conflict but more than likely money and time. This is just the first of many squabbles as economics drive a new self sufficient energy policy. Everything we do has risk and impacts but we can not afford to drive our currency down paying for imported oil which whacks out our balance of payments as we do now. If you look at enviro risk the present administration has returned to the same policies as the preveous three well four really, in fact Gulf drilling is wide open and in high risk areas more than ever.

Best way of putting it I have seen is a blogger who defined the next decades energy policies as one of " risk management. " A rather interesting definition.

If I was Canada I would turn that pipe west and sell to China. Canada should be more concerned with Canada than The U.S.

There are already 1000's of miles of pipeline criss-crossing the Ogallala aquifer and DOS’s impact statement rated the potential for water contamination as minimal.

I've read that there's 21 pipelines crossing the Aquifer.

Wow.

Just another nail Hank...he's dead meat.

Here's what I got out of this thread.

The mousy Irish brunette is kind of cute.

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/e...sition-enbridge


Canadians don't want it going west either

"The whole thing is just blatant political silliness."

Hankster got something right. The GOP trying to ramrod the pipeline through in a completely unrelated payroll tax bill is "blatant political silliness".

From Huffington post:

Let's try to deconstruct the hype to assess what the decision really means.

Foreign Oil and Energy Independence

Not surprisingly, some are characterizing the president's pipeline halt as a blow to our energy security and independence and a gift, in the form of petrodollars, to Middle East oil sheiks. Presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, for example, said the decision shows that Obama isn't serious about "achieving energy independence." Such conclusions seem off the mark.

1.Energy Security: The tiny amount of oil coming into the United States from the XL pipeline would have represented less than 4 percent of our total consumption. And it's projected that a significant amount of that would not be used domestically but would be sold to other countries.

2.Energy Independence: The United States already gets most of its oil from Canada. The pipeline would neither alter that supply nor affect our dependence on "foreign oil."


3.Geopolitical Implication: The price of oil, for the most part a fungible commodity, is essentially determined by total global consumption, not who buys it. The same goes for the number of petrodollars that flow to foreign nations hostile to the United States. Because we're such a large consumer of oil (about 20 percent of the global total), how much we consume has a huge effect on oil prices and therefore the profits of foreign producers. Whether we build the pipeline or not is essentially irrelevant. How much oil we consume and whether we institute oil-saving policies, like miles-per-gallon standards on automobiles, are what counts.

Environmental Protections

1.Climate: The president's decision is at best a symbolic victory for those wanting to clamp down on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
•The extra amount of CO2 that would be emitted by the pipeline's tar sand oil would make the smallest of blips in our national emissions -- on the order of a few percent.

•It's a virtual certainty that that tar sand oil will find a consumer elsewhere.


2.Ecosystem Protection: Concerns that the pipeline would have traversed some very sensitive and valuable ecosystems (including the Ogallala Aquifer) were justified. And so the environmentalists do have cause for some celebration there.

But even without the Obama decision the pressure against the proposed path for the Keystone XL pipeline was building. For example, Nebraska has stepped in and passed two laws: the first giving the state pipeline-siting authority, and the second requiring that the pipeline's path be altered to avoid environmentally sensitive areas (more on this here).

So now pressure mounts for the west coast.

Canadian natives warn against pipeline to Pacific

By Jeffrey Jones | Reuters

KITAMAAT VILLAGE, British Columbia (Reuters) - Aboriginal leaders opposed to a C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion) oil sands pipeline backed by Canada's government warned on Tuesday that the project could devastate fishing and traditional life on the rugged Pacific Coast and called for it to be stopped.

As hearings into Enbridge Inc's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline opened with drumming and native singing, hereditary chiefs and elders of the Haisla First Nation told the regulatory panel their greatest fear was the potential impact of oil spills on their community of 1,500.

At stake, they said, are salmon, halibut and crab fishing and fur trapping that have sustained the Haisla for generations.

"It worries me to think that all of these will be lost and destroyed when there is a spill - mark my words - when there is a spill. Experience shows it will happen," Hereditary Chief Sam Robinson, 78, told the panel hearing Enbridge's application.

The oil industry and Ottawa are pushing hard for the project, especially after Washington delayed the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline to Texas, as they seek new markets for the Alberta oil sands, the world's third-largest crude deposit.

The proceedings, expected to last two years, began at the community center in Kitamaat Village on the Pacific Coast's Douglas Channel, the terminus of the proposed pipeline. Battle lines have already been drawn between supporters on one side and environmental groups and aboriginals in the province of British Columbia on the other.

The pipeline would ship 525,000 barrels of oil sands crude a day 1,170 km (730 miles) from Alberta, across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, where it would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to rich Asian markets. An adjacent line would carry light hydrocarbons called condensate back to Alberta, where it would be blended with the thick oil.

Suncor Energy Inc, Sinopec Corp, Total SA and Cenovus Energy Inc are among oil sands developers that have put up tens of millions of dollars to help Enbridge move the project through the regulatory process.

Janet Holder, Enbridge vice-president in charge of the project, would not comment directly on any of the concerns expressed by the elders. She and four others from the company were in attendance.

"All I can say is we are here to listen and we are listening. We respect this process as we believe all Canadians respect this process," Holder said.

"NATION-BUILDING PROJECT"

Opening up a supply line to Asia is expected to boost returns for the oil derived from the tar sands, allowing it to be priced against more valuable Brent-based international crudes. It spells a big boost for the Canadian economy and hence is "a nation-building project," Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has said.

But the Haisla people stand between billions of dollars in oil sands developments and thirsty world markets. It also puts them a position of "staring down a double-barrel gun" in terms of putting resources at risk, Chief Kenneth Hall said in his testimony.

Robinson told reporters that his community would not support the development under any circumstances, but stressed it would restrict its opposition to the negotiating table and the courts.

That said, opposition is not so cut and dried from the community's standpoint, Ellis Ross, chief councilor of the Haisla elected body, told Reuters. He urged his people to let the hearings proceed before making up their minds. This issue is likely to go to a vote at some point, as was the case with other projects, including a liquefied natural gas plant last year.

"The Haisla Nation council wants to ensure that we get through the Joint Review Panel process as planned first, and then we'll decide what happens at that stage, depending on the decision," Ross said.

The arms-length makeup of the panel had been expected to mean a less hotly political process than the U.S. State Department's review of Keystone XL. Officials with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government said they would not comment on the project specifically, other than to say they support diversifying Canada's oil trade.

PRESSURE MOUNTS

Even so, Harper and his ministers have ratcheted up the rhetoric in recent days, charging that environmental groups that oppose Northern Gateway are tools of wealthy U.S.-based foundations bent on disrupting the proceedings and the economy.

"Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade," Oliver said on Monday.

That elicited a barrage of criticism, with some aboriginal leaders and opposition lawmakers alleging that the Conservatives government seeks to influence the proceedings.

Ross said some of the Haisla elders' comments were prompted by anger over government remarks.

"They're trying to bully this panel. We've got a quasijudicial process here that's rapidly losing its integrity as these ministers and this prime minister come out and try and re-instruct them," said Art Sterritt, who leads a coalition of aboriginal groups called the Coastal First Nations that is opposed to Northern Gateway .

Bob Rae, the interim leader of the opposition Liberals, said in Ottawa on Tuesday that Harper and Oliver should "keep quiet" on the project with the hearings underway.

"It is absolutely unacceptable and it shows a government that does not understand its limits, that does not understand the rule of law, that does not respect due process, Rae said.

There appeared to be few representatives from major environmental groups at the hearings on Tuesday.

The applications are being heard by a three-member joint review panel representing the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment agency.

Once the oral hearings portion of the proceedings are complete, the panel will prepare a report listing its conclusions on the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of the project. It then goes to the government for a response.

The panel then must make its decision on whether the project can proceed and what conditions to impose. The government can either accept or reject the decision, but it cannot make changes.

NIMBY - But I do want cheap fuel.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption


I guess the question we need to ask is why do we burn so much compared to the rest of the world.

For the same reason a dog licks his dick.

Thats some heavy stuff Dave..

It's not American oil, and it won't end up in America...just traveling through on its way to China.

Fish on...

Todd

Doesn't change the fact that I think that Irish chick is kind of hot, in a band camp way.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/thwarted-us-oil-pipeline-canada-looks-china-050249469.html


The battle rages on.