Obama and the Keystone XL Pipeline -- No Job For You!!!!

Obama and the Keystone XL Pipeline Scandal -- No Job For You!!!!
By Gary Starr for the Neville Awards Nov. 19, 2011
Does our Fraudinator-in-Chief care about jobs? You bet he does. So long as they exist only on paper. Or they are non-existent solar panel green jobs. Or they are public sector jobs....you know, teachers, government paper shufflers, SEIU, etc. But private sector shovel-ready jobs? Hmmmm, not so much. We need some more environmental impact studies. The Canadian Keystone XL oil pipeline is ready to go. Massive oil reserves are ready to be pumped from the ground and delivered to the U.S. That would mean 20,000 jobs here in this country, less dependence on the Arabs, and possibly, lower gas prices. A win-win, right? Nyet, comrade. No gas for you. Obama can't enrage his socialist no-growth flat-earth environmental buddies. That's his base for 2012. So he kicked the oil can down the road to post-election 2013 as far as a decision on Keystone is concerned (c'mon, we know what his decision will be if he's re-elected). He did what he does best....he voted present. OK says Canada -- we will ship the oil to Asia. China is a ready and willing customer. Way to go Barack!! But there is another reason to delay the pipeline. In the wake of the 2009 Gulf Oil spill Obama's kneejerk reaction was to suspend all deep-water drilling and permitting to U.S. companies, and announce a lengthy period of environmental impact studies to ward off any legal complications. At the same time Obama-buddy George Soros made a substantial investment in Brazil's Petrobras which does deep-water drilling in the Gulf. Obama traveled to Brazil and announced that the United States would be Brazil's "best oil customer" thus benefitting Obama-buddy George Soros. In North Dakota there is an oil boom going on at the Bakken Oil Fields. Who benefits from the Keystone delay? Obama-buddy number 2 -- Warren Buffet. From Investors Business Daily: Interestingly, another billionaire, Obama economic inspiration Warren Buffett, stands to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline delay. As oil production ramps up in the Bakken fields of North Dakota, plans to use the pipeline to transport it have been dashed. As a result, North Dakota's booming oil producers will have to rely even more on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad, which Buffett just bought, to ship it to refineries. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe in a deal valuing the railroad at $34 billion. Berkshire Hathaway already owns about 22% of Burlington Northern, and will pay $100 a share in cash and stock for the rest of the company. North Dakota vaulted past Oklahoma and Louisiana in 2009 to be the nation's fourth-largest oil producer after Texas, Alaska and California. Rail shipments accounted for up to 65,000 of the nearly 343,000 barrels of oil produced daily in North Dakota in December. That percentage is likely to increase. Many of the rail shipments from the Bakken fields are being handled by BNSF Railway Co., which has more than 1,000 miles of tracks in the region. Crony capitalism at it's purest. As we have said over and over since the inaugeration.....the most corrupt administration in U.S. history. The following are links to some excellent articles on the Keystone scandal:
Obama Abandons (Private) Labor The Keystone Debacle Billionaire Buffett's Bakken Boom Keystone Cop-Out -- Obama punts on more than 20,000 shovel-ready jobs.
Back to Top Obama Abandons (Private) Labor By Daniel Henninger for the Wall St. Journal 11/17/2011 The decision by the Obama administration to "delay" building the Keystone XL pipeline is a watershed moment in American politics. The implication of a policy choice rarely gets more stark than this. Put simply: Why should any blue-collar worker who isn't hooked for life to a public budget vote for Barack Obama next year? The Keystone XL pipeline would have created at least 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. Much of this would have been well-paid work for craftsmen, not jobs as hod carriers to repave the Interstate. On a recent trip to Omaha, Neb., Mr. Obama signaled where his head was on the pipeline during a TV interview: "Folks in Nebraska, like folks all across the country, aren't going to say to themselves, 'We're going to take a few thousand jobs if it means our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health." Imagine if he'd been leading a wagon train of workers and farmers across the Western frontier in 1850. Within days of the Keystone decision, Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, said his country would divert sales of the Keystone-intended oil to Asia. Translation: Those lost American blue-collar pipeline jobs are disappearing into the Asian sun. Incidentally, Mr. Harper has said he wants to turn Canada into an energy "superpower," exploiting its oil, gas and hydroelectric resources. Meanwhile, the American president shores up his environmental base in Hollywood and on campus. Perhaps our blue-collar work force should consider emigrating to Canada. Recall as well the president's gut reaction in 2010 to the BP Gulf oil spill: an order shutting down deep-water drilling in U.S. waters. The effect on blue-collar workers in that industry was devastating. Writing in these pages this week, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski described how Mexico, the Russians, Canada and even Cuba are moving to exploit oil and gas deposits adjacent to ours, while the Obama administration slow-walks new drilling permits. Read more

Back to Top The Keystone Debacle By LUCIAN PUGLIARESI for the Wall St. Journal 11/16/2011 The U.S. decision to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to go forward should have been easy. The pipeline would mean at least 20,000 new construction jobs. It would provide lower cost and reliable shipping opportunities for surging North Dakota oil production. Shipping petroleum from Canada's oil sands to the Gulf of Mexico means refiners there would gain a ready replacement for declining supplies of Mexican and Venezuelan crude. Most importantly, it would reinforce expectations that massive and long-term North American infrastructure investments could proceed free of political risk. And yet the Obama administration's decision to delay the project, despite already extensive and positive environmental review, puts all this in jeopardy. Both Canada and the United States benefit from highly integrated energy and investment flows. Keystone XL's owner, TransCanada, has already spent more than $2 billion for steel and related facilities. All previous cross-border pipeline requests have been granted, and the U.S. imports over 2.5 million barrels per day of Canadian crude oil and petroleum products. U.S. refiners also ship large volumes of petroleum products to Eastern Canada, taking advantage of geographic transportation efficiencies. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), no permits are required for shipment of Canadian crude to U.S. destinations by either rail, ocean tanker, or even incremental volumes through existing cross-border pipelines. The creation of a stable investment regime was central to the treaty, and U.S. negotiators successfully argued against reluctant Canadian negotiators that U.S. companies be given full national treatment when investing in Canada. For Canadians, it was unthinkable that a U.S. president would pull the plug after extensive reviews and 57 project-specific requirements exceeding all U.S. pipeline safety standards, including satellite-linked, computerized leak-detection systems and puncture-resistant steel pipe. Even one of TransCanada's competitors, Enbridge, which ships Canadian crude through existing cross-border pipelines, supported the Keystone permit: Any interruption in the historic bilateral energy trade relationship was a more serious threat to its business than crude shipments by competitors. Read more

Back to Top Billionaire Buffett's Bakken Boom Investor's Business Daily 11/16/2011 Energy Policy: Killing the Keystone XL pipeline may help one of the world's richest men get richer. North Dakota's booming oil fields will now grow more dependent on a railroad the president's economic guru just bought. Stop us if you see a pattern here. About the time George Soros � Hungarian billionaire and key donor to leftist groups and the Democratic Party � invested heavily in the stock of the state-run Brazilian oil company Petrobras, President Obama was curbing U.S. offshore oil production and the U.S. Export-Import Bank announced a $2 billion loan to Petrobras to finance deep-water drilling off the pristine beaches of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. As he was imposing curbs and moratoria on U.S. offshore drillers, President Obama wished the Brazilians well in the hope we would someday be Brazil's best oil customer. Apparently, oil tankers coming from Brazil are better and safer than a pipeline from Canada, whose best customer we will not be if they ship their tar sands oil to China instead. Interestingly, another billionaire, Obama economic inspiration Warren Buffett, stands to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline delay. As oil production ramps up in the Bakken fields of North Dakota, plans to use the pipeline to transport it have been dashed. Read more

Back to Top Keystone Cop-Out--Obama punts on more than 20,000 shovel-ready jobs. Wall Street Journal 11/11/2011 President Obama used to be fond of "shovel-ready projects." He's also demanding that Congress pass his jobs bill immediately because 9% unemployment is a crisis, and, by the way, he's for making the U.S. less reliant on energy from tyrants. So how about putting 20,000 Americans to work on a North American energy project that's as shovel-ready as they come? Sorry, Mr. Obama is voting present. The $7 billion project is TransCanada's Keystone XL, a 1,700-mile underground pipeline that would deliver 830,000 barrels of heavy crude oil a day from Alberta to refineries in Oklahoma and Texas. TransCanada filed an application to build the pipeline in September 2008 with the State Department, which must approve it because the pipeline would cross the 49th parallel. In April 2010 and again this August, State produced multivolume environmental impact statements that concluded the pipeline would have "no significant impacts" on the environment. That should have ended the matter. But the President's environmentalist friends have decided to make Keystone a test of his green virtue. "We'll see if [Mr. Obama] is an oil guy or a people guy," eco-agitator Bill McKibben recently warned at an Occupy Wall Street event, and the Sierra Club has threatened that it won't "mobilize the environmental base" in 2012 if he approves the project. Various Hollywood worthies have marched in front of the White House in protest. And, what a surprise, suddenly the government is finding new reasons to delay its decision. The State Department's inspector general announced Monday that he is ordering a special review to examine alleged irregularities in the drafting of the impact statements. Then yesterday the White House said it would postpone any decision in order to "undertake an in-depth assessment of potential alternative routes in Nebraska." Expect that assessment to arrive after November 2012. Read more