Keystone XL cancelled

Great Debates
1

I’d like to take my usual coldly-analytical-with-a-side-of-Simon-Cowell, but the truth is, I think it’s a horribly decision, stupidly done, and at the end of the day will increase actual pollution and energy costs at the same time. I cannot come up with any reason whatsoever why this would be a good idea, which is rather unusual. I can almost always come up with some scenario in which this is a good plan, but not today.

Yes, Obama finallymade his decision on Keystone XL. The pipeline is down. “Oh,” but he says, “I was worried about the aquifer.” No, that’s stupid. Even if there was an oil spill, it’s not going to contaminate an underground aquifer notable for not refilling easily from the surface. “Oh, he says, you can re-apply under a slightly different route.” No, that’s stupid. They’re just going to sell it to the Chinese, who will eagerly buy to use in their extra-smoggy cars. Net result? Fungible oil travels ariound the world (at a higher price) to be used less efficiently.

The official White House story is that he had to deny the demand of Congress he actually make a choice on account of time. This, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that he had plenty fo time and did nothing, and is now making excuses. Yes, I’m sure he doesn’t want to choose, because he’s thinking about the fact that the union base loves Keystone and the Green base hates it. However, the Greens are wrong, because as usual they enjoy thinking about some far-off future which exists largely in their heads, but cannot consider events ten minutes from now. Canada has already put plans in place - they know to whom they can sell. If we won’t buy, it doesn’t mean the oil won’t be used.

But hey, as Andrew Malcolm put it, “After all, who needs a secure energy source from a best friend when you can pay a fortune to buy it from unfriendly people in faraway unstable places?”

Blah. This just sickens me, and I just don’t want to say any more. Newlinks here:

Wall Street Journal: The Passive-Aggressive Presidency - WSJ

Investors Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/Article/598108/201201181904/keystone-pipeline-oil-obama-canada.htm

The Atlantic: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/01/report-state-department-plans-block-keystone-pipeline/47557/

Report of Obama’s own Council via The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/204621-obamas-jobs-council-calls-for-expanded-drilling

2

Uh… yeah.

In any case, the Republicans knew that the administration wanted more time to check into the environmental impact. Demanding a decision in less time necessary to check the environmental impact means forcing a no decision.

If the hooples who run the right in this country hadn’t demanded an unacceptable timeline, it might still happen. But they wanted to whip up their base, especially the coldly-analytical ones. :smiley:

3

What did the GOP really expect Obama to do in an election year? Throw the environmentalist part of his base under the bus? If they wanted this pipeline they should have considered the political reality and allowed for the decision to be made after the election. Instead they chose to gain an election issue and lose a pipeline.

It’s cold, analytic political calculation. Who is more likely to bolt the party (or not vote) over this issues - greens or unions? Obama (correctly, I think) decided that the issue was more important to the environmentalists than the unions (who have much bigger fish to fry - NLRB, right-to-work, card check).

4

I think this is a great move from Obama. He spent the first half of his presidency trying to work with a Republican party that clearly was not interested in finding common ground, so now he has carte blanche to push back on them just in time for the election year. Again and again, he comes out of it looking like the adult and the Repbulicans look like a party of unhinged radicals and their oligarch puppet masters.

5

The good reason is that nixing the pipeline prevents Canadian tar sands from being fracked. (Or at least slows down the pace.)

6
  1. It prevents the Repubs from setting the timeline and the conversation.
  2. It at least delays the building of a pipeline while all environmental considerations are weighed.
  3. It does zero to hurt U.S. energy security as the pipeline was to carry oil across the country to be sold to the world at large.
  4. A trans-Canadian pipeline selling oil to Chine does not hurt the U.S. Oil is a generally fungible good. China buying from Canada will free up other sources at cheaper rates.
  5. The jobs not created by not building the pipeline are far fewer than claimed by the industry and even those were for only at the beginning of the project.
  6. Labor unions see what Repub administrations have done in WI and OH. They aren’t voting R in Nov. They will be out in force and they will be voting for the Democratic candidate.

Really? No reason to make this decision?

7

[QUOTE=Jas09]
What did the GOP really expect Obama to do in an election year?
[/QUOTE]

Well, that’s easy. They expected him to do exactly what he did. IOW, he played right into their hands on this. Whether their calculations of the results will be what they THINK it will be is a different matter, but it’s pretty clear that they set him up with a ‘fork’ situation. It will be interesting to see who really gets forked here though.

My guess is that they will get the pipeline anyway…just not this year or next. The point was to make Obama decide one way or the other, and then play off of that and see what the results will be. IOW, it’s politics as usual, American style.

-XT

8

You’re confusing oil sands with oil shales. The problem with tar sands is the viscosity of the oil, not the intrinsic permeability of the formation.

Even if it was fracking, why would that be bad?

9

Absolutely. Which of course makes it rather silly to get all worked up about it, IMO. Especially in a post where you claim to be coldly analytic.

I also share your interest in what the outcome will be. I’m not sure the public is as pro-pipeline as the GOP seems to think, but I do think that it probably had decent support. Rasmussen had it at 60% - although he has a pretty bad record when it comes to “issues” polling like this.

I would add that the BP spill really gives Obama a pretty easy response - “we can’t build a pipeline across the country without doing an adequate review or we’ll end up with another disaster”.

Agreed. The pipeline (if it makes economic sense) will likely eventually get built but in a lower-pressure political environment.

10

I’ve changed my mind then. I thought Canada would sell it for the same price it would reach on the world market, I didn’t know that they would give us a discount.

11

Oh, so Canada will own it? Not the rich white guys in suits who usually own this stuff, but Canada? Cool! And they will sell it to us cheap, and not just sell it to say, China? Far out!

12

3 and 4 illustrate how some folks have a misunderstanding of the very concept of energy security.

Energy Security is not needed when you have a highly functional world wide market in a transportable fungible good. It’s needed when that market goes to shit, and you can’t get oil from the ME or South America, or any other far away place as easily as you can now. When that happens, it will likely be very nice to have internal sources of oil, and pipelines to other friendly sources, rather than rely on ships to bring it all in.

13

Plus, if we needed too, we could always invade Canada and take their oil pipeline way from the country and give it to rich old white guys, as the gods intended. AND make sure that those rich old white guys are the ones who get to sell to China. Perhaps on the backs of the peasantry. And stuff.

-XT

14

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
The good reason is that nixing the pipeline prevents Canadian tar sands from being fracked. (Or at least slows down the pace.)
[/QUOTE]

Yes, thank you for that. There’ll be lots of cracking but no need for fracking.

15

It’s hard to see this as anything but a bunch of silly-ass kabuki on the part of the GOP.

The Administration wants the pipeline, but they want to do the pipeline itself in an environmentally responsible way (skipping any arguments about the environmental effects of squeezing oil out of tar sands) and IIRC were legally required to do a proper environmental review anyway.

By imposing an artificial deadline, the GOP forced the Administration to deny the pipeline application - for now: the Administration has invited them to re-apply. And the GOP looks irresponsible and childish when GOP Congressional aides say things like “It’s a question of whether we’d rather have the pipeline or the issue,” as they come down emphatically on the side of having the issue.

The GOP has managed to reduce itself to little more than a set of political postures, and I think that’s increasingly going to sink in with the average voter.

16

Ok, then why don’t you explain it in nice simple terms for me? You are saying that if the pipeline was built, when problems occurred elsewhere in the world we could just seize the end of the pipeline and all of the oil coming out of it? Or more likely the pipeline gets built across Canada, probably to western Canada. Yes, I could see where that would be an issue. An oil source in the north, carried by pipeline to the sea, and then what? If only there was a domestic example of such a situation!

17

Whenever anyone burns hydrocarbons, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which causes global warming. Too much global warming will eventually decrease the quality of life for humans all over the world and greatly harm the environment. Consequently we should be looking for ways to produce and distribute energy while burning less hydrocarbons. Any attempt to instead set up a massive system of producing particularly dirty hydrocarbons and piping them through the United States is taking us in exactly the wrong direction, regardless of whether it involves hydrocarbons or ‘fracking’ or something else.

18

Ermm you don’t frack tar sands and frankly I suspect you don’t know a whole lot about fracking.

This sort of “politics as usual” doesn’t really bother me because playing politics with something like this isn’t taht harmful as opposed to say fucking with teh debt ceiling and getting our debt downgraded. BUT, how does this play out well for Republicans?

+1. I think people remember that Obama was on the verge of opening up offshore oil drilling jsutn before the BP oilspill occurred. You can hardly blame them for taking their time with this one.

I don’t think you understand energy security very well either.

I can see Russia from my house!!!

19

Given the trouble getting the First Nations to agree to a pipeline across northern BC, I don’t know if it’s such a pressing concern with Canadian companies selling their oil to China.

20

[QUOTE=Damuri Ajashi]
This sort of “politics as usual” doesn’t really bother me because playing politics with something like this isn’t taht harmful as opposed to say fucking with teh debt ceiling and getting our debt downgraded. BUT, how does this play out well for Republicans?
[/QUOTE]

Depends. If the Republicans can spin this to make Obama look like he’s putting environmental issues (or his base) above concerns for the creation of new jobs, then it might actually play well beyond their base. People are seriously worried about the whole jobs thingy, and Americans are totally spoiled wrt the price of gas, and also worried about having to be dependent on getting oil from a region as unstable as the Middle East (I agree here btw)…so, all of that might get some traction. Or, it might be seen as the blatant political play that it was. Or, maybe the supposed environmental impacts might get traction. Or, perhaps mutant space cougars will invade before November and it will all be a mute (:p) point. Who knows?

-XT