This article indicates that the connection is very indirect while at the same time creating the impression of a direct link in the title.
I am generally a supporter of the KXL because the anti-KXL folks seem to be anti-oil luddites who seem to want everyone living like the Amish. However, I could be convinced to object to the KXL just to fuck with the Koch brothers and slow funding to the tea party groups and i suspect that a lot of liberal lefty groups know there are people like me out there.
How strong a connection is there between the Koch brothers and the KXL pipeline? Is the liberal left trying to leverage my distaste for how the Koch brothers are hijacking democracy to get me to object to something that I would otherwise support?
I am getting very disappointed with the Other 98%, they started out as an economic populist group and has quickly become an outlet for far left leaning organizations.
You might be interested in reading this response to the WAPO article. This is actually a response to a response all on the subject of the original WAPO piece. You can follow the internal links to review the history here.
I haven’t done any research to verify claims of either side of the argument so you’ll have to decide for yourself.
(2) I couldn’t help but notice that the blog refuting the Washington Post article is so far on the lunatic right-wing fringe that they make the Tea Party look like liberal intellectuals. So I would judge their credibility accordingly. For instance, John H. Hinderaker, who wrote that “refutation” and is one of the ultra-conservative lawyers who runs the blog, has called George W. Bush “a man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius … He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.” If you believe that’s a fair description of Dubya, then feel feel to believe anything else that John H. Hinderaker has to say. In my view, based on the Koch brothers’ historically intensive pro-oil and anti-science lobbying and their well known long-time holdings in the Alberta tar sands (even the far-right blog trying to defend them claims they own “only” 1.1 million acres – it may be much more but it’s hard to say since it’s not a public company) they must surely be among the strongest lobbyists for Keystone XL. As the above article notes, Koch Industries is one Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters, they have massive well holdings in addition to the tar sands acreage, and they own a major oil terminal in Hardisty, which is the Keystone Alberta terminus.
OK, so it seems like there is not anything close to clear and convincing evidence that the Koch brothers are manipulating me into support the KXL pipeline and all the reasons I currently support it are still valid.
Despite the far right wing credentials of Hinderacker, the folks who are lined up against it seem to be pretty left wing. So why not just look at the facts? Both sides are using spin and conjecture but they seem to more or less agree on the facts.
I’m still in the dark on how the whole KXL is a good thing for us. What’s in it for us again?
It’s not our oil, and it won’t be our oil. It won’t bring gas prices down in any way.
It’ll give us a handful of temp jobs.
If it was such a good idea why won’t Canada let them run a pipeline east or west?
Canada told them ‘no’ right?
So where’s the upside of this thing?
The better question is why is this even a major issue? We approve new pipelines all the time. There is nothing terribly unique about this one. Pipelines are safer and better for the environment than shipping by truck, rail, barge, or tanker. Does anyone actually dispute that?
However, we have somehow made what should be a very uneventful decision into a political circus. In the U.S. oil industry, most people don’t really care about this other than it shows what absolute buffoons our politicians can sometimes be. They are moving crude oil out of the tar sands by rail. It’s dirtier, more expensive, more accident prone, but hey, environmentalists get to push for something against their own interests once again and Warren Buffett gets to make a lot of money for his rail companies so everything’s fine.
Well, it’s certainly a fact that the Koch brothers have massive oil interests in Alberta which stand to benefit directly from Keystone XL, and that they operate the most insidiously aggressive network of spinmeisters and lobbyists in the United States today. Since Koch Industries is private, many of the details of where this money is going can only be surmised, but in recent years it’s known to have gone to at least 90 tax-exempt advocacy/lobbying organizations, many of which in turn support smaller organizations, websites, and other media campaigns. Their use of dark money funnelers like Donors Trust – basically a money-laundering outfit – and secretive 501(c)6 organizations makes it even harder to trace details of exactly what specific propaganda the Kochs are funding, but it’s clear that much of it is directed toward pro-oil and anti-environmental lobbying which is central to Koch interests. According to the EPA, Koch Industries alone emitted 24 million tons of CO2 in 2011, and has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for chronic and repeated environmental violations.
Given the Koch brothers’ massive interests in Alberta oil and their history of aggressive and often secretive lobbying, you can draw your own conclusions about whether or not any of their money is responsible for the terrific things you may be hearing about the Keystone pipeline which is directly linked to Alberta oil. If you want a notarized statement of how much they contributed to supporting it, I don’t have it.
A few words in response to some of the comments about why there’s controversy over Keystone XL and why the regulatory hurdles.
One issue is just the fact that it crosses an international border, which requires State Department approval. Another is that some of the route has been through environmentally sensitive areas, where a leak could be devastating to freshwater resources, drinking water, and wildlife. I believe that some of the routing was changed in response but I don’t know where that stands right now. Pipelines may or may not be safer than rail but they certainly do rupture and the results can be disastrous.
In my view, the biggest problem with the proposed pipeline is twofold. One is that it’s a multi-billion dollar investment in an energy source that we should be looking to wind down, not increase. Even worse, it would be an enabler for further expansion of a particularly dirty source of oil. Depending on the extraction method used, the tar sands produce varying combinations of environmental problems including CO2 emissions in the extraction process itself, water utilization, and air, water, and land pollution.
My understanding is that the gulf refineries are the ones that are geared up to refine this stuff and now that Venezuela production is dropping, the refineries would like some feedstock.
The oil is already being shipping into this country by rail.
The oil gets sold onto the international market, as global supply increases, global prices drop.
The pipeline will create about 2000 good paying jobs for 2 years or so. Those may not be permanent jobs but theya re jobs we could use right now. Not that I think 2000 jobs are a humongous deal from a policy perspective.
This oil is going to be refined no matter what, some people just want gas to be as expensive as possible (regardless of what it does to the economy) so that we will wean ourselves off of fossil fuels sooner rather than later.
I think they have addressed the water issue. They are going around it.
Its their money to burn. Do you think that taxpayer dollars are paying for any of this, or are you suggesting that we should tell them how to invest their money? Or are you saying that we should start banning oil or something like that?
At these prices, its going to be extracted and refined whether or not there is a pipeline. The best way to keep that stuff in the ground is to reduce the demand for oil enough that the price drops so low that it won’t be worth extracting and refining. The best way to do that is to push electric cars or something like that (automobiles account for 2/3 of all oil consumption and frankly without the revenue from gasoline, a lot of the other petroleum products would not be viable and we would see things like asphalt being replaced by concrete further reducing oil consumption. At least thats the way it looks to me.
Here’s a letter sent yesterday from 11 Senate Democrats asking Obama to approve the pipeline. Included is notably, the head of the Senate Energy Committee, Mary Landrieu.
[QUOTE=4/10/14 Letter]
This process has been exhaustive in its time, breadth, and scope. It has already taken much longer than anyone can reasonably justify.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=4/10/14 Letter]
We ask that you bring this entire process to an end no later than May 31, 2014, and that your final decision be the right one, finding that the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest.
[/QUOTE]
For those of you that are still opposed to this, I think now is the time for some introspection. This unnecessary delay of a simple and uncontroversial project was done purely for political reasons by Obama. This is nothing more than shoot yourself in the foot stupidity by the crazy wing of the environmentalist movement that is no better nor well thought out than typical PETA maneuvers. This is the same environmentalist thinking that has stifled nuclear development and unwittingly propped up the coal industry for decades. This is the same environmentalist thinking that pushed corn-based ethanol on us. This is the same environmentalist thinking that opposes the natural gas development that has reduced not only green house gas emissions but scores of other pollutants emitted by coal fired power plants. Just because they may have good motivations does not make them right. Just because Republicans may have poor motivations does not make them wrong. Are you a blind partisan incapable of independent thought or are you better than that?
I don’t know where I stand on KXL, but I think motivations of the proponents should be looked at as well as the opponents.
If this is approved it would mean taking some of the property rights from the owners of the land it will cross by law, because not all the owners of the land this will cross over want to sell the rights to cross it. The GOP is all about the government not taking away property rights except when it benefits them!
Which isn’t to say I’m against this. I just don’t want anyone who is for this pipeline to ever use an argument like “we should lower taxes because government shouldn’t have any right to your property!”
Not a surprise. Landrieu is a staunch advocate for the oil and gas industry. Making her Chair of the Senate Energy Committee instead of Ron Wyden is a lot like making the denialist lunatic James Inhofe Chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, of which he is still ranking minority member.
Well the best way would be a carbon tax or tradeable emission permits for greenhouse gases. But that won’t happen. So the greens are going for second best, tilting the costs against tar sands, a highly CO2 intensive form of oil production. Not the best strategy in my view, except perhaps as a component of a larger political fight.
The Keystone pipeline will be the a yard in diameter in 1900 miles long - the biggest in North America. This isn’t a conventional project and it deserves heightened scrutiny. IMHO, it has received such scrutiny and provided the supporters are willing to clear a few hurdles, they should approve the plan.
Not sure how we should stick it to the Koch brothers though: there is a public interest in doing just that.
I think that it’s pretty broadly accepted that eminent domain can be exercised in limited instances when fair market value is given in compensation. That having been said:
[QUOTE=TransCanada]
TransCanada said it has reached voluntary agreements to secure 100% of the private easements required for the pipeline in Montana and South Dakota. It has 76% of the easements required for the route in Nebraska, it said. In general, the company said it has had to use eminent domain with only 2% of landowners.
[/QUOTE]
I’d still want to hear more on the point of, “what do we get?” It isn’t like the US has a Permanent Fund the way Norway captures money from oil extraction to benefit its general population. The quantity of oil we’re talking about isn’t going to affect global oil prices- it amounts to less than 1% of global production. It does promote the dirtiest project on Earth.
The American general population is going to get horrible dilbit spills, which will turn Canada into an enemy in many people’s minds, which would be quite a shame. The upside for the American public is… jack shit. The question isn’t about left vs. right or are opponents ‘environmentalists’ who can be saddled with all the past baggage of some larger movement- spare me the endless labeling and let’s stick to the subject. The question is: what is in it for the people affected? If the answer is ‘nothing’ (which it literally is), all the snark and condescension in the world doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, so you might as well shove it.
We can deny approval for the XL pipeline. If transporting it by rail proves too dangerous, we can ban the transport of dilbit across American territory by rail. The Canadians can then build the pipeline across their own territory.
I’m not disputing this. The ones who should be against the use of eminent domain are the ones who claim to be free market purists, who scream that government can never do anything right, that all taxes are confiscation, that Obama wanting a small tax increase is tantamount to socialism. Eminent domain is way closer to confiscation than taxes are.
I don’t disagree that many people sold their right of way voluntarily, but I’m also under the impression that many people only sold it “voluntarily” after being threatened with eminent domain (i.e. may as well settle now cause we’re gonna take it anyway.)
This is such a weird high hurdle, and I think you should ask yourself why you think this specific project needs to meet this in order to be approved. We approve crude oil pipelines all the time. There have been numerous major pipelines approved and built in the U.S. since this was proposed. We approve free trade type items with Canada all the time. Why does this specific project need to be such an incredible benefit to mankind in order to gain approval. They’re not asking for public funds to build this. If it meets the bar of projects of this nature from a safety standpoint then we should obviously approve it.
When your neighbor needs a permit to build an addition to his house, it doesn’t need to meet the burden of being the solution to the entire neighborhoods various problems in order to gain approval. If it meets with safety and other related requirements then it gets approved.
Now having said that, the benefits are obvious and hardly need to be repeated again and again like is done. Our closest ally wants it done and this has damaged our relationship with them with our politicizing of it. It obviously generates at least some direct temporary and permanent jobs. It obviously generates at least some indirect temporary and permanent jobs. It obviously will generate some federal, state, and local tax revenue. I don’t feel like it’s necessary to debate the amount of those items, but unless you are closed off to reality, you must agree it will generate some revenue and it will generate some jobs.
This is clearly untrue. It’s not a debatable point. This is not something that reasonable minds can disagree about. The marginal unit of production absolutely affects the price of a commodity. That’s basic.
Now, if you want to argue that these same barrels get to the market regardless of whether this pipeline is built then I agree with you. Therefore, I don’t believe this pipeline will lead to lower prices as they will be produced and sold into the market one way or another. In fact that’s exactly what every government report has stated.
And because these barrels will be produced and sold to the market regardless this point becomes clearly wrong. The project, as agreed by every government study, will not affect the production of Canada’s tar sands.
Pipelines as proven time and time again are the safest method of transport for oil. That is an incredibly uncontroversial and easy to understand statement. No one that is honestly looking at this can possibly disagree with that.
This is an issue for one reason: politics. Obama did not want this to be an issue in the 2010 midterm elections as he was trying to bolster his support among the environmentalists. It stupidly grew into a larger issue as Republicans called him on it. If Republicans had kept quiet it would have been quietly approved like every other simple and uncontroversial project of this nature. It then blew up into a bigger issue and Obama is now stuck having to make a no-win decision. Instead, he’s decided that endlessly kicking the can is the right way to go.
